Punjab CM violates merit to appoint favourite at secretariat

During the past five years the Punjab government has made 334 appointments of favourites in the Chief Minister Secretariat on various posts in violation of merit. These appointments are over and above the posts sanctioned by the Services and General Administration Department in the Chief Minister Secretariat. The documents available with ARY News reveal as how these appointments are made.

Interesting quite recently, the Chief Minister Secretariat created a post of Assistant Comptroller tp accommodate a blue eyed. First the Chief Minister Secretariat relaxed rules to withdraw the said post as one-time dispensation from the purview of the Punjab Public Service Commission. Afterwards an advertisement was made in two Urdu dailies for inviting applications against the post.

Chief Minister Secretariat evolved the criterion for the appointment which includes raising the maximum age limit from 25 to 45 for accommodating the favourite candidate. A departmental selection committee was constituted for appointment against the newly created post which was headed by Additional Chief Secretary Punjab Shamail Ahmad Khawaja and comprised Additional Secretary Welfare Moazzam Iqbal Sipra, Deputy Secretary  Ms. Ayesha Ahmad and Additional Secretary Ikram Ullah Niazi.

 

The selection committee after initial scrutiny shortlisted 40 candidates eligible for the interview. After the interview process, the committee observed that relevant experience documents were not annexed with the applications submitted earlier and no candidate could prove or provide relevant experience documents during the interview.

The only candidate who possessed the relevant experience and eligible for the posts was the blue eyed Mujahid Ali. The documents further revealed that Mujahid Ali had experience as a trainee waiter for three months in Pearl Continental Hotel, and Management Trainee in Food and Beverages Department for three years in Park Plaza Hotel.

The documents further revealed that Mujahid Ali was simply B.Com while majority of the remaining candidates possessed M.Com or MBA degrees. His grand total after the interview was 72 against total 100 marks while at least ten out of 40 candidates got 75 marks.

Interestingly, Mujahid Ali was the only candidate whom the Selection Committee awarded four marks out of total five in the interview while remaining 39 candidates were given zero mark. Likewise, he got five marks for having relevant experience while remaining 39 got zero mark. Just to accommodate the blue-eyed, the selection committee dropped 39 candidates from interview who had irrelevant experience. The insiders claimed that most of the appointments done by CM Secretariat have similar kind of stories.