The Ports and Shipping Ministry has decided to dissolve the board of directors of the Karachi Port Trust (KPT), the Port Qasim Authority (PQA) and the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC).
Also, top-level bureaucratic reshuffling is expected at the Gwadar Port Authority (GPA), the board of which the source said could not be dissolved for the legal peculiarities involved.
The dissolution of the three federal agencies’ boards would be carried out before Eid, highly-placed sources confided to Pakistan Today on sidelines of a briefing held on Saturday by the ministry at a hotel.
Ports and Shipping Minister Kamran Michael said the move is aimed at cleansing these agencies of the “corrupt people” inducted on political grounds during last five years.
He also said his side was doing homework to rid the agencies concerned of “corrupt people”. “I would break big news during Ramazan,” the minister said.
Explaining the statement an official at the ministry said, “The federal minister has directed the secretary and joint secretary (ports and shipping) to submit a detailed report on legal and constitutional framework under which the three boards could be dissolved.”
Also, he said on special directives of the PM’s Secretariat the ministry had issued letters to the managements of KPT, PQA, PNSC and GPA to give presentation to the federal minister in Islamabad detailing how many appointments and on which grounds were made in their respective organizations during past five years.
“The chairmen would be required to explain the number of employees inducted during 2007 and 2013 and the basis thereof,” said the official.
The federal minister, he said, would then forward his recommendations to the prime minister.
The official said constitutionally the premier was the competent authority to make appointments to or dissolve the board of directors of KPT, PQA and PNSC that fall under the jurisdiction of the ministry.
“The prime minster has already ordered the dissolution of boards at PIA, Pakistan Steel, Railways Corporation, Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation,” the official said.
About GPA, sources said, some major changes were expected at the helm of the authority. “The replacement of GPA chairman is also under consideration,” the sources said.
However, the federal minister had yet not decided possible replacements of the directors of the dissolvable boards, the sources added.
The managements of the said agencies, particularly the KPT and PQA, braved a constant media trial during past five-year rein of PPP-led coalition government that allegedly had overcrowded these profit-making government and semi-government institutions in through politically-motivated inductions.
The Pakistan People’s Party and its ally the Muttahida Qaumi Movement have long been containing charges pertaining to the hiring of their political workers and supporters in the federal agencies in question.
