KARACHI, Nov 4: A good number of posts, including those of technical experts, are still lying vacant in the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) as either the staff with relevant qualification are not recruited or it is difficult for the higher authorities to replace ineligible officials with the competent ones.

Environmentalists and professionals told APP on Tuesday that deficiencies of the department were mainly due to a lack of qualified and competent personnel.

“No concerted efforts are being made to acquire services of professionally qualified and technically competent professionals against the vacancies,” a senior environmentalist said.

Many of the Sepa employees assigned the responsibilities of technical staff are non-technical personnel and some of these officials have degrees in Arts/Humanities. They have been given the positions only to accommodate them since there are no positions lying vacant in other departments or they are not fit for the available jobs, the professionals observed.

The lack of human resource has been hampering Sepa’s ability to ensure implementation of the laws, rules and regulations concerning the environmental protection and efficiently pursue the public interest cases through the environmental courts.A dearth of qualified and trained personnel has also rendered some of the relevant facilities like “mobile lab” inoperative.

When asked to comment, a senior official said: “We are expected to have qualified and competent professionals hired through Public Service Commission.” —APP