Much against the trumpeted claims of good governance by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, he has made 275 out-of-turn allotments in government residential accommodations despite the fact that superior courts had observed in the past that “out-of-turn allotments are discriminatory in nature”.
The Punjab government is not only giving much substance to superior courts verdicts on the same subject but is also not pushed about to avoid taking such steps which in the past have earned bad name for the government of the day and deprived many eligible to wait for their turn.
In addition of approving “out of turn” allotments, there are few other instances in which the Punjab chief minister has allotted a government residence to a junior person in the presence of senior ones while in one particular case he issued orders to dislodge former Punjab IG Ahmed Naseem, who had once served as Punjab IG under former chief minister Pervez Elahi and is nowadays a member the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC), and awarded the same residence to a retired lieutenant general despite the fact that same officer had already been awarded a residence who had started living in the allotted residence.
Even Hamza Shahbaz has tried to get his favourite to be accommodated through his Personal Staff Officer Aleem Abbas but Punjab Additional Chief Secretary Sami Saeed did not accommodate Hamza.
Per the official record available with GNI on this issue, though the authorities concerned are obeying the orders of their chief executive yet they have also made it a point to bring it on official record about the negative impact of this policy.
“These out-of-turn allotments have resulted in prolonging the waiting period of the officers who have been passed over by the out-of-turn officials and has aggravated the sense of deprivation amongst the passed over officials”, one such document say.
Though these out-of-turn allotments have been executed by the Punjab Department concerned, yet the same departments have categorically states that “such situation creates embarrassing moments for the Punjab departments concerned to justify these allotments”. “Since there is an acute shortage of government residential accommodation and waiting periods are quite long out of turn allotments further aggravate the sense of deprivation amongst those employees who are waiting for maturity of their turns since as far back as 1988-89”, one of the letter which raised this vital point says. Over the years, a large number of out-of-turn allotments have been made in relaxation of the policy in all categories in compliance with specific directions of the chief minister and the situation has also given rise to litigation by the deprived officials who are unable to secure allotment despite the fact that their turn is due. Keeping in view the prevailing sorry state of affair relaxing the rules and regulations by none other than the Punjab chief minister, one of the document proposed that “the principle of “first come first served” as enshrined in the policy is adhered to without exception, and no out of turn allotments are made in relaxation of the policy for at least a year which will help clear backlog of oldest waiting officials”.
Similarly, in another related issue an interesting situation has developed when Shahbaz repeatedly approved allotment of House No 15, Golf Road GOR-I, to different officials without realising that he had already approved the allotment of the same residence to another official.
Moreover, in the same case besides repeatedly approving the allotment of this particular residence to different officials, he also negated the allotment policy by allotting the residence to junior officers in the presence of eligible senior officers.
