The advertisement published by the State Bank of Pakistan in the daily newspaper on 19th August 2012 was a surprise for most of employees of the central bank. While internal promotions have been suspended for the last three years, the vacancy announced in the monetary policy and research cluster has seriously dented the sentiments of the employees working in the bank. Almost 25 analysts working across the bank with different professional and academic backgrounds were interviewed by one of the chief economic advisers of the bank and surprisingly none of these were considered suitable for these specific posts despite having experience of working in these areas specifically inflation and prices.
On the one hand, no internal promotion has taken place due to so called surplus manpower, while on the other hand, direct hiring, induction of contractual employees and now this new advertisement explicitly portrays inconsistent policies of the bank. Ever since the appointment of chief economic adviser in the bank, most of the disheartened analysts have either quit the bank or applied for deputations to their home stations. This is the direct cost of nepotism at the research cluster of the bank that economic analysts having experiences of five-six years are leaving the research cluster. The higher management should take serious action on this act of nepotism.
OMER KHAN