ISLAMABAD: Ministry of Finance (MoF) has proposed to appoint one member of Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) from the candidates earlier finalized or through fresh advertisement, official sources told Business Recorder.

Three positions of members CCP were advertised in national newspapers on April 25 and 26, 2020. In response to the advertisement, 121 applications were received by the closing date which were scrutinized by a short-listing committee in its meeting held on May 15, 2020. After assessment of CVs and credentials of all the candidates on the basis of their educational background and quality, relevance and diversity of their experience, the committee finalized the list of 15 candidates in order of their merit for interviews by a Selection Committee.

A meeting of the Selection Committee was convened on June 06, 2020 to conduct interviews of the 15 short-listed candidates. The committee ranked the fourteen candidates, who appeared for interview, in order of merit based on their performance in interview. A panel of top nine candidates was placed before the Cabinet for selection of three to be appointed as members of the CCP.

The Cabinet accorded approval to the appointments of candidates as Chairperson and Members CCP, respectively. Pursuant to this, the notifications for appointments were issued to the selected candidates.

However, amongst the appointed members Shomaila Loan declined to join as she had already accepted a position in the private sector.

In order to fill the resultant vacant position of Member CCP, the following panel of the remaining 11 candidates, in order of merit as finalized by the Selection Committee was submitted; (i) Mueen Batlay; (ii) Samir Ahmed; (iii) Mr. Mohammad Bilal; (iv) Salman Amin; (v) Ikram Ul Haque Qureshi; (vi) Khaqan Hassan Najeeb; (vii) Tariq Bakhtawar; (viii) Sohail Iqbal; (ix) Adil Anwar; (x) Mian Ayyaz Afzal and; (xi) Asim Mustafa.

Finance Division has proposed that one candidate out of 11 candidates may be appointed as Member CCP with immediate effect for a period of three years under Section 14 and 17 of the Competition Act, 2010 or since a vacancy has been created, therefore, Finance Division may publish a fresh advertisement for appointment against one vacant post of Member CCP.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020