- Over 5,000 positions remain vacant including gazette posts
ISLAMABAD: With around 5,000 posts vacant in its different directorates, Capital Development Authority (CDA) marches on with its stop-gap arrangements, officers on deputations and giving multiple charges to its officers and staff.
The severe paucity of employees not only adversely affects the functioning of the civic agency but also makes the position of contract employees precarious.
According to sources at HR department of CDA, against the total sanctioned strength of 19,453 employees, at present, a total of 14,410 employees are presently working in the CDA. Interestingly, 351 of the vacant positions include posts of gazetted officers of grades 17, 18, 19 and 20.
According to details, 11 posts of Grade-20, 58 posts of Grade-19, 16 posts of Grade-18 and 266 posts of Grade-17 are lying vacant in the authority. Further down the line, the number of vacant posts skyrockets as 293 posts of Grade-14, 122 posts of Grade-2, 2,262 posts of Grade-1, 312 posts of Grade-7, 476 posts of Grade-5 and thousands of other posts in its 70 directorates lie vacant.
It is pertinent to mention here that the top echelon of CDA is plagued by ad-hocism and former CDA chairman Sheikh Ansar Aziz was given the acting charge of by then prime minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif. The Islamabad mayor held the post of CDA chairman for 13 long months until Justice Athar Minallah de-seated him on a petition filed in 2016.
On the non-gazette jobs, the stop-gap arrangements like hiring daily wage employees in place of permanent ones hold sway at lower clerical and menial jobs.
Also, with the emergence of Metropolitan Corporation of Islamabad (MCI), the powers, perks and privileges of CDA are also bound to undergo a reshuffle and redistribution as back in December 2016, 49 departments of Capital Development Authority were devolved to MCI. However, the discord was averted as Islamabad Mayor Sheikh Anser Aziz was given the acting charge of CDA chairman.
When contacted, CDA Spokesperson Malik Salim said that the authority has sent the requisitions through Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) to the Establishment Division (ED). After the approval comes from ED, the posts are announced, he added.