The Punjab government has decided to lift a ban on the recruitment of human resource to accelerate the work on foreign-funded development projects in province including the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects. The decision was taken by the standing committee of the cabinet on finance and development on the request of Secretary Planning and Development (P&D) standing.
According to the documents available with Business Recorder, Secretary Planning and Development Iftikhar Ali briefed the standing committee of the cabinet on finance and development that the cabinet had imposed a ban on all recruitments from basic scale BS-I to Bs-16 except 17 and above which fall under the preview of Punjab public Service Commission( PPSC).
In this regard the planning and development board had moved a summary seeking clarification from Service and General Administration (S&GAD) as to "whether the ban has also been imposed on recruitment under development projects or otherwise". Subsequently, the S&GAD clarified to the Secretary P&D that the government of Punjab has imposed a ban on all recruitments.
The Secretary P&D further clarified that pace of development works, especially CPEC, and other foreign-funded projects are adversely suffering due to such a ban on recruitment.
He further narrated that "the expenditure against the development projects remained below the benchmark owing to vacant project posts as a result of ban on the recruitment".
He further said in the summary moved to the S&GAD that project posts are paid from allocated development funds and these posts are abolished with immediate effect after completion of development projects. "These posts are on the contractual basis with no long term liability for the government secretary," he maintained. Accordingly, the standing committee of the cabinet on finance and development was requested to consider and approve lifting of ban on recruitment against development project posts. In the above mentioned circumstances, the standing committee of cabinet on finance and development relaxed the ban on recruitment against posts of foreign-funded ongoing projects.