PESHAWAR: The Provincial Civil Service Association Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Sunday expressed concerns over what it called undue intervention in the official work and inappropriate attitude of Minister for Excise Mian Jamsheduddin Kakakhel three days ago.

The minister had stopped an additional assistant commissioner, Mohsin Habib, from removing encroachments in Nowshera. The video footage of the incident has gone viral, showing exchange of hot words between the minister and the official regarding anti-encroachment drive.

The minister was shown reprimanding the official and accusing him of launching the drive without issuing notices to the relevant shopkeepers.

However, according to a statement issued by Provincial Civil Service Association all the formalities were fulfilled and notices were duly served on the shopkeepers concerned before launching the anti-encroachment drive in Nowshera Kalan.

It said that the additional assistant commissioner along with relevant TMA and police staff was busy in the anti-encroachment drive when the minister arrived and asked him to stop the work.

PCSA accuses Mian Jamsheduddin of interfering in official work

The minister insisted to stop the work that despite the fact that notices and other documents were shown to him.

He used abusive language and tried to bully the young additional assistant commissioner to get the work stopped, it said.

In such state of affairs, when the civil servants are pressurised by politicians and other quarters in their duties, it will be difficult to render better service to the people.

“The provincial management service officers have been working hard in extreme circumstances with lack of resources and subject to various pressures from politicians, judiciary and military,” said the statement. It added that the trend hampered the process of good governance and a source of de motivation for the officers.

The association appealed to Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and Chief Secretary Mohammad Azam Khan to take strict disciplinary action against the minister in order to preempt such like incidents in the future.

Fahad Ikram Qazi, the coordinator of the association, told Dawn that the minister should tender apology for his misbehaviour with a civil servant. “If the minister is reluctant to tender apology then the district administration should take action against him for intervention in the official work,” he said.

Mr Qazi said that otherwise the association might move court against the minister. “Legally speaking, the minister has no power to stop the district administration from removing encroachments,” he added.

Mr Qazi alleged that currently the civil servants were facing hardships in delivering official work owing to undue intervention of the military, judiciary and politicians. He also blamed police for not cooperating with the district administration to perform official duty.

In the video, the officials of district administration are shown removing encroachments when the minister approaches them and stops them.

In the presence of the additional assistant commissioner, many shopkeepers tell the minister that the district administration has not issued notices to them regarding removal of the encroachments.

The minister tells the official to bring the bulldozer for removing encroachments but first issue notices to the shopkeepers.

“I am your officer,” the minister tells the official, who is trying to contact someone through his mobile phone.

Published in Dawn, November 20th, 2017