PESHAWAR: Dr Ishrat Hussain, the chairman of prime minister task force on civil reforms, here on Tuesday held a meeting with the representatives of the Provincial Civil Service.

A statement issued by PCS Officers Association said that Ghafoor Beg, Mutahir Zeb, Qaiser Khan and Fahad Ikram Qazi represented the officers during the meeting.

It said that Dr Ishrat Hussain explained his plan for civil service reforms and the structure of proposed National and Provincial Executive Service.

The association conveyed its reservations to him over not taking a single representative from PMS and composition of his committee.

The statement said that Dr Ishrat did not respond positively to the same and replied that consultative process could cater to it. He was also informed that the province was going through an administrative crisis as 200 positions in the share of PAS were lying vacant whereas promotion of hundreds of PMS officers were overdue.

The representatives of the association said that posting of PAS officers to provinces on provincial positions was illegal after passage of 18th Amendment.

The statement said that Dr Ishrat Hussain did not respond positively regarding the issue and regretted to consider the same as an issue of the civil service.

The PCS officers stood their ground of inclusion of representatives from PMS in the committee as well as marked apportionment formulae 93 as the principal structural anomaly of the civil service.

The statement said that afterwards a meeting of the association was held wherein it was decided that the committee had to become inclusive and should propose the annulment of apportionment formulae 93 before proceeding further.

“Since Dr Ishrat Hussain is biased towards PAS cadre and not ready to consider the view of 4000 PMS officers across Pakistan, this association declares today’s consultation as a sham and believes that these reforms will be superficial and will have nothing concrete,” it said.

The participants of the meeting said that they would only cooperate with the committee in case they were given proper presentation and apportionment formulae 93 were annulled.

“If the same is not done, we will reject all such measures in the name of reforms and will agitate across the country,” they added.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2018