Non-career Pakistani diplomats posted in various foreign missions are in a fix as finance departments of the embassies concerned have termed all such postings illegal and refused to release their salaries and allowances, a report in the local media said on Friday.
According to the report, more than 57 officers from ministries of information, national heritage and commerce were appointed on political basis at some 20 missions abroad by the Pakistan People’s Party government. Some of them are not even civil servants, it added.
The report said that the finance and accounts department of the Pakistan Embassy in Washington had informed the Ministry of Finance in Islamabad that the posting of the deputy press attaché was illegal. On the request of the then ambassador Sherry Rehman and with the approval of prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, a temporary post of assistant press attaché BPS-17 was created for the year 2012-13. It was subsequently upgraded again with the approval of the prime minister for Muhammad Faisal Ilyas, stated the letter written by the Finance Division Islamabad to the Ministry of Information and National Heritage on this issue.
The report said that the previous government posted 15 officers from the Ministry of Information and 20 from the Commerce Ministry without deliberating on whether these posts were available or not at these missions.
It claimed that the latest order also applies on two dozen community welfare attachés whose appointments were made by the previous government in an apparent violation of rules. The finance and accounts departments of the missions abroad had already pointed out postings of Sardar Balakh Sher Khosa, son of former governor Punjab Latif Khosa, who was appointed as a counselor on April 4, 2012 in London on a private quota, without observing the rules.
The report further revealed that Syed Akbar Adil Shah, brother-in-law of the leader of opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Shah, was appointed as a counsellor in Sydney on January 1, 2009.
