LAHORE: Punjab’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is functioning on the basis of posting junior officials at upper ranks without any regard for seniority and eligibility, Pakistan Today has learnt on Sunday.
At a time when there is a dire need to redress environmental issues in the province, the EPA—running short of staff—has given the key posts to their favoured individuals.
Currently, the EPA is running without any director general (DG); and it has only two permanent directors who meet the required criteria to obtain the offices, whereas the genuine requirement of the agency is a total of six directors.
The permanent directors are Legal Director Muhammad Nawaz Manik and Monitoring Lab and Implementation (MLI) Director Tauqir Ahmad Qureshi. The office of the Environment and Dengue Health (EDH) director is also filled by giving an extra charge to Nawaz Manik.
In the EPA, the most important offices of Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) director, Planning and Control (PC) director, and Admin director are filled with deputy director ranked officers ( who are grade 18) by giving them additional charges, while the most important offices of North/P&C director and Technical (TT) director are lying vacant.
Deputy Director Muhammad Tahir has been given the charge of the EIA director. According to sources, Tahir is the most senior deputy director in the EIA and he was posted to EIA section with no regard for his professional capabilities.
The additional charge for the PC office director in the EPA has been awarded to Waseem Ahsan Cheema, the most junior deputy director.
The office of the Admin director is also occupied by a junior officer of BPS-18, Taseer Ahmad, who was posted in the EPA a few months ago. Previously, Taseer was working in the Anti-Corruption Department in the grade 18.
Like offices of the directors, a number of deputy director offices are also lying vacant which are filled with assistant directors by rewarding them with additional charges of these offices. The office of the Research and Implement (RI) director is filled by giving a charge to Javed Iqbal, who is officially lab deputy director.
According to sources, Javed Iqbal is basically a chemist and can only run the functions of the laboratory but the department has appointed him contrary to his capabilities. Asim Rehman is posted as an EIA deputy director who is a junior officer of BPS-17, and he possesses a degree in chemical engineering which is irrelevant to his post.
Anjum who is an assistant director (BPS-17) has been given the charge of district officer (DO) environment Lahore. Anjum is the most junior officer in EPA and has no experience in the environment field, but still, he stands at number 22 in the seniority list.
Moreover, some big wigs in the department had transferred the senior and competent officers to other districts. Naseemur Rehman had been posted to DG Khan, who served as EIA director in the headquarters; Younis Zahid had been posted to Rajanpur who served as the Lahore DO. Younis Zahid is the only master trainer on dengue programme in the EPA.
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