LAHORE: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Saturday issued a notification to announce that the secretary of its revenue division, member (administration), chief of the management, chief commissioners, director generals and heads of the departments will be authorised to recruit employees to the bureau
up to grade 17.
The FBR has apparently attempted to give a legal cover to the unlawful appointments made by senior officials in the Customs Department recently. In order to refute a report carried by Pakistan Today on October 27 that highlighted the illegal appointments of lower division clerks (BPS-7), the FBR issued a notification to specifically empower certain senior officials for appointments to the bureau.
A senior FBR official said that instead of correcting previous wrongs, the FBR violated the Civil Servants (Appointment, Promotion and Transfer) Rules, 1973, again by authorising bureau’s officials to directly appoint public servants. FBR officials were informed of the mentioned postings on May 21, 2010 and the appointment letters were issued on August 2, however, the notification to authorise bureau officials to directly recruit employees has been issued on October 28. Officials said naming officials three months after the actual recruitment was in total violation of law and the notification was issued only to save the skins of the officials involved in the shady recruitments, as unearthed by the news report. Another official, wishing not to be named, said the notification could not legalise unlawful actions, as direct appointments were against the spirit of the constitution, Supreme Court verdicts and civil servants rules of business.
He said it was mandatory to advertise vacant posts in all public sector institutions before appointment and “two wrongs do not make a right”. The official requested the Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to take suo motu notice of the illegal appointments to
the bureau.
In fact FBR during last two-three years made appointment against direct quota post like KPOs, steno-typists, stenographers LDCs UDCs etc without observing provincial regional quota on nepotism basis. Two to five persons relatives to officials working on admn side have been appointed ignoring thousands of applicants of the four provinces belonging to far flung area of Pakistan. One example is of Abbasi steno grapher to Mehmood Hussain secretary whose five relative have been appointed out of which two three posted to LTU/RTO Islamabad/Rawalpindi.
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