ISLAMABAD, July 12: The ministry of commerce is reluctant to give clearance to some trade officials, including a niece of former prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, for postings abroad.
Well-placed sources told Dawn on Monday that out of 50 short-listed candidates, the government had selected 18 trade ministers, counsellors-general, commercial counsellors and commercial secretaries to be posted abroad.
Following their selection, the officials had obtained necessary training from the academy and were also cleared by their respective departments and intelligence agencies.
According to the sources, so far only six out of the 18 officials have left for joining their assignments, while the remaining were waiting either for visas or clearance from the ministry.
The sources said the ministry was reluctant to give clearance to Azra Jamali, section officer, economic affairs division, selected as commercial secretary in Johannesburg. According to the sources, Ms Jamali had been cleared by agencies and also completed her training at the academy.
The sources did not disclose the names of other officials who were yet to be given clearance. However, they added that around 60 per cent of the officials either belonged to Balochistan or had served there in different capacities.
Around 450 candidates had applied for the 18 posts. However, most of the 50 candidates short-listed for interviews reportedly belonged to either of the two lists sent by the president's and the prime minister's secretariats or other influential figures.
Earlier, the screening of officials for posting abroad was conducted through a proper test followed by an exhaustive interview so that there was little chance for making approaches in the selection process, said the sources. However, the military government changed the selection procedure about two years ago and introduced only an interview for the selection, which, the sources said, had provided room for using contacts in the process.
The sources claimed that currently no proper criteria were being followed and selection depended on the recommendation of high-ups. The judgment of the competence of any official through a short interview for such important postings was impossible, the sources said.
The list of the selected officials for posting abroad is as follows: Aftab Anwar Baloch, collector customs (exports), Karachi, posted as trade minister at Moscow; Fazal Abbas Maken, project director, machine readable passport/machine readable visa, automated border control project, ministry of interior as trade minister at New Delhi, and Tariq Iqbal Puri, vice-chairman, Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), Karachi, as trade minister, Brussels.
Tariq Shafi Chak, managing director, Punjab Small Industries Corporation, posted as counsellor general at Hong Kong and Saifullah Chattha, personal staff officer to prime minister, as counsellor general at Montreal.
Commercial counsellors: Dr Mohammad Iqbal Thaheem, additional secretary to the Sindh chief minister, at Warsaw; Azra Mujtaba, deputy secretary, prime minister's secretariat, at Mexico; Seema Najib, director (finance), Lyari Development Project, Karachi, at New York; Shahid Ashraf Tarar, director, president's secretariat, at Los Angeles; Hijab Gul, POF Wah Cantonment, Jeddah; Imtiaz Ahmed Khan, additional collector, collectorate of customs, Rawalpindi, Kuala Lumpur; Ali Salman Abbasi, additional collector (preventive), collectorate of customs, Karachi, at Seoul; Agha Jan Akhtar, additional secretary, office of chief commissioner for Afghan refugees at Hamburg; Nazir Ahmed Awan, director EPB, at Sao Paulo, and Zafar Iqbal Qadir, joint secretary, ministry of commerce at Geneva.
Commercial secretaries: Shaista Sohail and Dr Mohammad Saeed, deputy secretaries, ministry of commerce, at Geneva; Rubina Taufiq, deputy director EPB, at Dhaka and Shahzad Hussain Rana, deputy director, EPB, Lahore, at Almaty.