ISLAMABAD, Dec 23: Employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) have appealed to prime minister, president, finance ministry officials and leaders of the ruling party and opposition in the Parliament to hold an inquiry into the recent promotions of officers in the commission.

They alleged that the SECP Promotion Committee promoted only their “near and dear ones” in October this year leaving out more than two dozens high ranking officials including directors, joint registrars, assistant directors, software engineers and deputy registrars from the process.

The SECP officials, who were ignored, in a letter to President Gen Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, chief justice of Pakistan, Parliamentarians and Finance Ministry officials have sought an inquiry into these “unconstitutional promotions”.

A copy of the letter is available with Dawn.

In the letter, the SECP officials have alleged that these promotions were made without the approval of the SECP Policy Board and without considering the basic formula of “seniority-cum-fitness” and the rules of good governance.

The employees have demanded of the president and prime minister to appoint an anomaly review committee of some neutral officials of the SECP to review these promotions. They said that many officials were working in the same grades over the last five years and they had been left out in the process, while, officials with less than three years of experience have been promoted. They have also appealed to the Finance Ministry to intervene and save the SECP from complete collapse.

The letter has also pointed towards a number of appointments recently made in the commission on lucrative salary packages. A good number of these recently inducted officials were not having relevant experiences. In the name of consultancy, the SECP was also paying high salaries to officials selected from the telecom sector, the letter has alleged.