LAHORE: Former PCB Chairman Lt. General (retd) Tauqir Zia has expressed his surprise at the decision of PCB to retire regular employees above the age of 60 years.
The PCB yesterday terminated the services of its regular employees including Chief Operating Officer Wasim Bari. A PCB official said the board’s HR committee informed around 15 employees that their services were no longer required as they had become ineligible under the service rules act.
“The service rules states that employees who turn 60 have to be retired and unfortunately this list includes some very senior people,” the official said. “The service rules have always been there so why has this thought dawned on them now to remove people who are aged 60 or above,” Tauqir asked.
Tauqir stated that if the Board was sincere about improving its performance then it should try to induct fresh blood in the management. Sources said that Intikhab Alam, current manager of the national team, will be unaffected since he was working on a contractual basis.
Asked as to why the service rules did not affect Ijaz Butt who is over 70, a source said that the Chairman was working on an honorary basis in the board.
The list of the terminated officials also includes Shafiq Ahmed, general manager of domestic cricket, umpires manager Khizar Hayat, and former Test player Ehteshamuddin, who works at the national cricket academy.
It has also been learnt that the majority of the removed officials would return to their jobs on a contractual basis and only a couple of them would be affected by the decision.
COO Wasim Bari would be one of them as he has been having differences with the PCB Chairman on a number of issues and if political pressure did not come into effect he would soon be the ex-COO of the PCB.
