Prime Minister Secretariat and Ministry of Industries and Production (MoI&P) are reportedly pressurising the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Engineering Development Board (EDB) to select/appoint their nominees as managers and assistant managers, well-informed sources told Business Recorder here on Thursday.
EDB is facing a shortage of technical officials and intends to hire three managers and four assistant managers. For this purpose, EDB advertised the posts in the media and requested potential candidates to dispatch their applications along with Rs 1000 per application.
EDB received about 500 applications from across the country and the requisite tests were conducted through IBA. According to sources, as the process started, three candidates were recommended by the Prime Minister and three by the Minister for Industries and Production (MoI&P). In the meantime the CEO himself gave fresh contracts of grade 17 to two officials of grade 16 (one male and one female) who were already employed in EDB, allegedly in violation of rules. According to the rules, EDB has to advertise the vacant posts and follow prescribed rules and procedure to select suitable candidates.
"On the one hand the process has started to recruit suitable professionals through merit and on the other fresh contracts are being given in violation of rules," said an official of the MoI&P on condition of anonymity.
When Minister for Industries and Production, Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani was asked if he sent three applications to the EDB''s CEO for selection against advertised vacancies, he would neither confirm nor deny it. "I don''t remember how many applications I have recommended because I recommend every application. This is to our credit, we give jobs to the unemployed youth," he added. Bijarani is also a member of the ministerial committee formulating a policy to make contract employees permanent. The committee recently held a meeting under the chairmanship of Minister for Religious Affairs, Syed Khurshid Ahmad Shah.
When contacted the CEO of EDB, Aitzaz Niazi confirmed that Prime Minister had recommended the names of four persons against the vacancies advertised in the media. "Yes, Prime Minister sent a couple of names with the direction that they be considered his candidates, but I refused to do that and asked the concerned persons to appear in the test," Niazi added.
Niazi spent time in jail in 2001 on different charges including possession of wealth beyond his source of income. However, talking to this scribe he claimed that all the cases against him were politically motivated and baseless. In a recent clarification in response to a story in this newspaper, Aitzaz A. Niazi acknowledged that he was questioned on the BMW cars scam but his name was never included as an accused in BMW reference.