LAHORE – The right-sizing drive of the Punjab government is superficial and counterproductive on and leaves hundreds of trained human resource in uncertainty, senior government officers told Pakistan Today on Monday. The Punjab government has abolished hundreds of senior posts not only in the districts, but in various administrative departments as well as part of its austerity drive. The step was taken to cut expenditure and use the freed up money for the rehabilitation of flood-hit areas. However, senior government officers expressed their reservations over the ongoing drive, saying the decision of abolishing posts had been taken without proper “homework”. “When posts are abolished, the employees holding those offices are put in the surplus pool, meaning they will keep drawing salaries from the government exchequer, but they will not render any service,” a senior officer seeking anonymity said.
They further said the decision was taken “in haste” and without introducing a parallel framework as its substitute. “When a post is abolished, it does not mean the said task will cease to exist anymore…for example, the finance department abolished several posts of executive district officers (EDOs) of IT, Law and even Revenue, but did not give a substitute to perform the task…realising the glitch, the Finance Department later held the notification of the abolition in abeyance, but other posts of DDOs were abolished,” said another officer.
Sources in the government confided that the DDOs whose posts had been abolished were still working in the districts on the same posts, as the government had still not decided their fate. They said the concerned district coordination officers (DCOs) would be directed to accommodate the officials on vacant slots within the districts.
This also leaves the general public in a fix, as they have no idea “where to go and whom to consult” to get a certain task done. The people and officers are equally unaware about the implications of the rightsizing and its future prospects for them.
