- Feeling uneasy to further continue working with restricted powers, the official requests authority to relieve him from his position
Perturbed over revelations of massive anomalies, Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) chairperson restricted executive director of Human Resources Department from delivering official duties except for the development of performance evaluation system.
Official documents available with Pakistan Today disclosed that the executive director pointed out the list of anomalies and asked for a massive reshuffling of officials/officers immediately to improve the performance of various departments of OGRA during a meeting with the OGRA chairperson held on April 10, 2017. However, OGRA chairperson has now restricted the HR ED from fulfilling the official duties, except development of the performance of evaluation system. “You are advised to restrict yourself to the assignment given to you by the chairperson,” said Inter-Office Memo (IOM) of OGRA issued on April 13, 2017.
Interestingly, OGRA chairperson’s secretariat issued IOM on April 13, 2017, to restrict ED (HR) from official duties ostensibly owing to the IOM issued by ED (HR) on April 11, 2017. The ED (HR) has highlighted abnormalities/anomalies in the working/postings of various officers/officials as well as their working contrary to their assigned job descriptions and tasks, and prevailing disgruntlement among various officers who deserve promotion to higher slot as per rules. And, requested the authority to initiate massive reshuffle of all officials/officers viz a viz restructuring of all departments to develop and cultivate a conducive and professionally efficient working environment in all departments, said IOM issued by ED (HR) on April 11, 2017.
Feeling uneasy and unjustified to further continue working at the slot of ED (HR) with restricted powers, the official has now requested the authority to relieve him from the position. “The undersigned feels unjustified to retain the position of ED; hence, he might be relieved from the position and bestow the position to an adequate officer, competent enough to effectively operate and conduct ED (HR) duties in prevailing abnormal conditions and as per instructions of the competent Authority,” said OGRA’s IOM dated April 14, 2017.
The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) is faced with a plethora of serious challenges and is about to sink after being hit by huge anomalies concerning maladministration, rampant poor governance, irregularities, etc. which have dented its reputation badly.
Copies of official documents available with this scribe disclose anomalies and irregularities of OGRA which need to be addressed and rectified to ameliorate the existing working environment of a regulatory authority, which was established on March 28, 2002, on the pressing demand of the World Bank and other donors to foster competition, increase private investment and ownership in the midstream and downstream petroleum industry.
According to details, Executive Director (Complaints) has two dedicated office secretaries against the entitlement while two executive secretaries are working in the department (Complaints) against one sanctioned post. Similarly, two executive secretaries are working with ED (Oil). Morever, in CNG department every DED (deputy executive director) has one office attendant each, likewise, in Gas and LNG/LPG departments.
Though ED (LNG/LPG) department has not been appointed, however, one executive secretary has been appointed in the department (LNG/LPG) who sits idle in front of the office of In-charge LNG/LPG department. Moreover, instead of performing duties at the Enforcement Department, the recently transferred DED (Oil) is still working in Oil department and ED (Enforcement) is allegedly found helpless to assign any task related to enforcement to the said DED.
It is relevant to mention here that there was no officer available in the enforcement department to adequately handle the enforcement of gas sector, whereas two senior ED level officers are waiting for a promotion or at least upgradtion to Senior Executive Director (SED) for a long time. These two senior ED level officers, who absolutely fulfil all the criteria of promotion to SED level have resorted to applying for jobs elsewhere.
A similar situation prevailed in CNG, administration, IT, registrar and Gas department where officials are waiting for promotions to next grades. Besides, sanctioned HBF (house building finance) loan for OGRA officials has been kept pending for a long time despite the completion of required formalities and documentations.
Last but not the least, the employees working on contract basis at OGRA are not being regularised contrary to the decision of the federal government, while an advertisement has been recently published for the hiring of personnel.