MUZAFFARABAD, April 29: Three out of four members of a selection committee for appointments in the local bodies’ institutions in AJK stayed away from interviews for three BPS-16 posts here on Friday.

Sources told Dawn that Minister for Local Government and Rural Development (LG&RD) Malik Mohammad Nawaz, Secretary Dr Syed Asif Hussain Shah, and Director General of LG&RD department Arshad Mahmood Abbasi did not attend the meeting. It was summoned to conduct interviews for appointment against the posts of private assistant (PA), deputy chief officer and publicity officer in the Municipal Corporation Mirpur, District Council Mirpur and Municipal Committee Bagh, respectively.

The only member attending the meeting was Tahir Ayub, secretary Local Government Board (LGB), an apex body overlooking the service matters of the employees of local bodies’ institutions.

Sources said only those officials who are notified by the government as members of any selection committee can conduct interviews and they cannot depute anyone else to sit on their behalf on the panel.

But the director general LG&RD had sent a deputy director, Gul Zaman, to ‘represent’ him at the interviews. Babar Minhas, an official appointed on contractual basis in a LG&RD department project, also attended the process for some time. Curiously, the fourth member on the interview panel was Mehjabeen Abbasi, a BPS-17 officer of LGB.

The interviews, sources said, will also continue on Saturday.

Appointments in the LGB as well as the subordinate local bodies’ institutions in AJK are not made through the Public Service Commission (PSC) but through departmental selection committees or boards, which are mostly blamed for recruitments on the basis of likes and dislikes and political connections.

Sources disclosed that secretary LG&RD had opposed the interviews in the absence of the selection committee members and had instead called for their postponement. However, his call was ignored.