It is requested that the candidates should be given updates on the recruitment status of the last advertised positions
LOWER DIR: Last year in April, vacancies in the administration, engineering and the accounts cadre (BPS-17) were advertised by the Local Council Board of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) in leading newspapers. Screening tests for the said positions were conducted by the National Testing Service (NTS) and the results declared within a week after the test was taken. The NTS charged Rs500 per application for a single post as the test processing fee. Thousands of candidates applied for the said positions and travelled from far and wide in order to take the test. The poor unemployed candidates had to spend a lot of money for this whole process with the hope that after the screening test, the candidates will be quickly shortlisted and the positions subsequently filled. However, even after one year, no interviews have been conducted for the said positions. The matter was brought to the notice of K-P’s Local Government and Rural Development Minister, Inayatullah Khan, who assured that the recruitment process would be accelerated and all formalities to fill vacant positions would be completed. However, he has not been able to fulfil his promise. It has been learnt that the local council board has cancelled the said positions without providing any reason for doing so.
Now, once again, the local council board has advertised some vacancies and has said that the screening test would be conducted by the NTS. A large number of candidates would apply for the said positions, wasting their money in the test processing fee and travel expenditures. However, if the local council board again cancels these vacancies at a later stage or plans not to conduct interviews for them, then why is it making unemployed people to apply for these positions and thus wasting their money?
It is requested that the candidates should be given updates on the recruitment status of the last advertised positions and interviews conducted for those shortlisted so that the unemployed youth may have confidence in the transparency of the recruitment process. This will ensure transparency of the recruitment process. It is hoped that the provincial local government and rural development minister will also take action to fulfil his promises.
Asif Khan Shinwari
Published in The Express Tribune, March 26th, 2015.
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