Reshuffling at the top: 6 Passco officials transferred

Department faces FIA inquiry into ‘doubtful’ recruitments.

LAHORE:

The Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Cooperation (PASSCO) has transferred six of its top officials.

According to an official notification, Human Resource General Manager (GM) Lt Col (r) Muhammad Younis Raja has been transferred and posted as audit and inspections GM.

GM Col (r) Raja Nusrat Ali has been posted as the stock systems and control GM, Muhammad Ihtisham Tiwana has been posted as additional HR GM, Munawar Hussain the commercial deputy GM and Dr Muhammad Nayyab has been posted as the HR deputy GM.

The decision comes at a time when the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is conducting an inquiry into alleged irregularities in recruitments in Passco. The inquiry was ordered by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in May after the Passco Staff Union (PSU) sent him a petition alleging irregularities in 50 recruitments.

PSU president Rana Latafat and general secretary Qasim Tarar alleged that the management had inducted 50 employees in 2013 on seats that should have been filled through in-house promotion.

The petition states the recruitments were made without fulfilling the recruitment criteria.

The PSU said that the inductions had been made during the interim government, contrary to a decision by the Supreme Court which had suspended all such appointments.

The PM had directed the FIA to complete the inquiry in 20 days.

Aftab Wattoo, the FIA investigation officer for the case, told The Express Tribune that the FIA had taken possession of all relevant Passco records to ascertain the complaints. “The statements of applicants were also obtained with affidavits to proceed against the accused,” Wattoo said.

He said that the agency had obtained the HR GM’s statement on points raised by the applicants. “An interim report has been sent to the PM Secretariat as the inquiry was time-bound,” Wattoo said.

Lt Col (r) Younis Raja denied any irregularity in the recruitment process. “The staff union filed an application alleging that inductions in the organisation were made against rules. The matter is being probed by the FIA. I have answered all objections raised by the investigation team,” he said, adding that all the recruitments were made in a transparent manner. “My transfer from HR to the audit wing has nothing to do with the inquiry,” he said. The PSU president said they were cooperating with the investigation team and said their complaint was based on facts.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 22^nd, 2014.