The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)-led Sindh government is likely to remove hundreds of ghost employees from various departments of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and the Karachi Water & Sewerage Board (KWSB), Pakistan Today has learnt.
A decision to this effect was made recently by the ruling PPP’s senior leadership; however, its coalition partner, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), was not taken on board for implementing the decision, sources privy to the development have disclosed.
They said that hundreds of ghost employees were allegedly drawing their salaries from the KMC and KWSB accounts, putting extra burden on the provincial exchequer. Majority of these ghost employees belong to political parties, they added. Sources said that through a notification in November 2011, the Sindh government removed a large number of contractual employees from the then City District Government Karachi (CDGK).
However, those appointed by former MQM-backed city nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal were spared from the dismissals, they added.
Moreover, they said, more than 7,500 illegal appointments were made during Kamal’s tenure, putting extra burden on the KWSB’s finances.
They said the ruling PPP has time and again pointed out illegal appointments in the KWSB. A couple of inquiry committees had also been formed by the authorities to take notice of the illegal appointments and send these politically-backed appointees packing, they added.
However, sources said, former coalition partner in provincial and federal governments, the MQM, had always resisted the move in a bid to support its loyalists.
They said Sindh Local Government Minister Agha Siraj Durrani had instructed KWSB Managing Director Ghulam Arif in April 2008 to submit a report within 90 days and clarify how these appointments were made during the tenure of the caretaker government and the CDGK.
But, they added, the investigations remained incomplete following reconciliation between the PPP and its coalition partner.
“Over 7,000 appointments were made purely on political grounds, particularly by the former city nazim,” acting KWSB chairman Haji Munawar Abbasi told Pakistan Today.
Usually, he said, the probation period of contractual employees is at least two years; however, the former city mayor, bypassing all the relevant rules, had regularised these appointees after a period of one year. He said, “The decision regarding cancellation of these illegal appointments would be made by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah or the local government minister, the head of the KWSB.”
Furthermore, the sources said, a large number of ghost employees are also drawing their salaries from various departments of the KMC, causing financial crisis for the city administration as well as the provincial government.
They said that in this regard, the Local Government Department has instructed the director payroll KMC and KDA to submit the details of basic data of all the employees drawing salaries from the KMC within 15 days so that this could be sent to the authority concerned for compilation of employees’ data.
The departments were directed to fill the name, designation with basic pay scale, Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) number, date of birth, date of appointment, posting department, CNIC number of any relative for confirmation and relation with her/him in different columns and send this to Human Resources Management Senior Director Najmuddin Sikandar, they added.
The salary bills of those employees would be printed who possess the correct CNIC numbers and bank account, said the sources.
