Rs 20 million pocketed: NTS conducted tests of 48,674, against 633 vacant posts, Senate told

The lawmakers in the Senate Thursday were stunned to know that against 633 vacant posts from BPS-7 to BPS-16 in Utility Stores Corporation, National Testing Service (NTS) had conducted tests of '48,674 unemployed persons and pocketed nearly Rs 20 million' as fee. But the posts were subsequently not filled owing to financial health of the corporation.
During the question hour, Minister for Industries and Production Ghulam Murtaza Jatoi said that NTS called 21,079 candidates for tests in 2015 and 27,595 in 2016, and initial screening test was qualified by 3,165 candidates, who were to be interviewed afterwards. However, it was observed that most of these, who had qualified the test, were not having relevant experience and required length of experience for the post applied.
After the advice from the ministry, vacant posts were re-advertised and initial screening tests were conducted in January this year. The matter was placed before the USC board of directors, which observed that in view of weak financial health of the corporation, no fresh recruitment could be made and hence scrapped the entire process. Consequently, no interviews were conducted and process of recruitment was stopped.
Senators Tahir Hussain Mashhadi, Mohsin Leghari, Dr Jehanzeb Jamaldini and Usman Kakar wondered why the unemployed persons were made to pay test fee and undergo the gruelling exercise if they were not to be inducted. They questioned why the USC board could not assess the financial situation of the corporation prior to initiation of the process. They called for reimbursement of NTS test fee. "They are already jobless, the NTS must pay back the test fee," emphasised Usman Kakar of PkMAP.
Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal, speaking on behalf of the minister for industries, said that indeed the decision not to induct persons, had caused disappointment, but he promised this would not be repeated in future. He also said that he would have to check whether or not the test fee could be reimbursed. Finance Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar told the Senate that during the first quarter of financial year 2016-2017, home remittances dropped by 5.4 per cent to US $4,698.31 million compared with $4,965.81 million previous year. However, as a result of positive growth in remittances in October 2016, cumulative decline in home remittances was recorded at 3.8 per cent during the four months of 2016-2017 (July-October) over the same period of last year.
The minister explained that sharp decline in oil prices for extended period was mainly responsible for the decline in remittances as Gulf region had a dominating share of around 63 per cent in total home remittance inflows. He added money service businesses in Britain and Australia were facing problems in transferring funds owing to closure of bank accounts as banks adopted wholesale de-risking policy in these jurisdictions. Another reason, he noted, for decline in remittances from Britain was its decision to exit from the European Union. Brexit caused a rapid fall in Britain round parity in terms of dollar and Pak rupee.