ISLAMABAD: Despite expiry of their tenures, a total of 173 officers from different provinces are still serving on deputations at important posts in the federal secretariat, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Sources told Pakistan Today that an officer can remain on deputation for a maximum for five years. “On completion of this term, both the borrowing and the lending organisations need to ensure immediate repatriation of the officer who was sent on deputation,” he added.
“In case it is not possible to repatriate a person to his parent organisation for compelling reasons, the case should be referred to the Establishment Division before the expiry of the allowed five year term, fully explaining the circumstances due to which immediate repatriation is not possible and the measures which were taken to obtain a replacement,” sources said.
In 2015, the then prime minister had directed to identify the cases in which officers were continuing work in their posts after the expiry of the specified period. But despite the order, none of the government departments paid any heed to it and no action was taken by the Establishment Division.
Interestingly, the audit department has the power to hold the salary and allowances of the officers if they exceed their tenure. Sources, however, said that the salaried were reimbursed to the officers regularly.
Moreover, some of these officials of deputations were merged with the office management group (OMG) some years back, prompting the OMG officers to seek relief from the court for reverting back the decision. OMG officers contended that non-cadre section officers of provincial governments cannot be inducted into the federal government.
The Supreme Court (SC) in its judgment in April 2017 ordered the federal government to repatriate all the officers working on deputation in regular service cadre OMG.
The Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet in its last meeting had also directed the Establishment Division to furnish the details in next meeting about those officers who were working on deputations despite the passage of five years.
It is worth mentioning here that Establishment Division has been preparing a policy in this regard but it has not been made public yet.
