–At least 22 senior govt officials from grade 20 to 21 enjoying salaries and perks for years as govt fails to delegate them responsibilities
ISLAMABAD: At least 22 senior officers in grades 20 to 21 from different service groups are currently serving as Officers on Special Duty (OSD), which means that they have not been posted to a particular division or department and are currently not assigned any responsibility.
According to documents available with Pakistan Today, some officers are enjoying the salaries, allowances and other perks from the state without doing anything for years.
Over a dozen experienced top bureaucrats who were appointed as OSDs, still await postings.
Captain (r) Usman Zakaria of BS-20 is an OSD at Establishment Division since July 12, 2013. Similarly, another officer of BS-20 Abdul Rauf Khan is working as an OSD since February 10, 2014, with Extra Ordinary Leave (EOL) of 730 days that ends on Sept 18, 2018.
Muhammad Akhtar Khan Gurchani, BS-21 is an OSD since May 23, 2014, and two officers of BS-20, Faisal Malik Awan and Muhammad Azim Khan have been appointed OSDs since Sept 1, 2015, and August 28, 2015, respectively.
Another interesting case is of Rashid Mansoor PAS/BS-20, who was made an OSD on June 1, 2012. He went on a one-year leave on his fourth anniversary of becoming an OSD in 2016.
As per the documents, at least six officers of BS-20 and 21 have been OSDs since 2016. Those who were OSDs for the last two years are Salman Mufti, Aftab Ahmed Maneka, Sumaira Samad, Muhammad Azam, Muhammad Azim Arshad and Captain (r) Usama Mumtaz Raja.
Those who have been OSDs since 2017, include Arshad Farooq Faheem (BS-21), Ali Raza Bhutta (BS-21), Ali Zulnorain Sheikh (BS-21), Ahmed Bakhsh Narejo (BS-20), Haroon Ahmed Khan (BS-20), Muhammad Siddique Sheikh (BS-20), Irum Bukhari (BS-20), Azra Jamali (BS-20), Naila Zafar (BS-20) and Chaudhry Mubarak Ali (BS-20).
Apart from the OSDs, at least 10 senior officials have been awaiting postings for years.
Officers waiting for postings include Umar Rasool (BS-21) and Muhammad Ilyas (BS-20) since 2016, Yousuf Khan (BS-20) since 2014, Zafar Nasrullah Khan (BS-20), Ehsan Sadiq (BS-20) and Ghaniur Rehman Wazir (BS-20) since 2015.
Similarly, Karman Fazal and Iftikharul Hassan Shah Gilani of BS-20 have been waiting for their postings since 2016 and 2017, respectively.
Two BS-20 officers, Shafqatur Rehman Ranjha and Azizur Rehman, on the other hand, are facing disciplinary proceedings since August 2016 and July 2015, respectively.
According to sources, all such officers are paid full salaries by the government, costing the public exchequer millions of rupees every month.
Sources privy to Pakistan Today further revealed that some of the OSDs have now started considering voluntary retirement due to the government’s inability to post them to suitable divisions.
If some of them are OSDs for a number of years, they may either have the guts to challenge the government in the Supreme Court and make it give solid reasons for doing so. Or else, they should ask for retirement.
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