Unlawful appointments: NAB files reference against seven officials

Education department employees allegedly hired 440 people illegally in Matiari

HYDERABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has filed a reference in the NAB court, nominating seven education department officials for illegally appointing 440 employees in Matiari district.

The appointments, carried out in 2012, caused a loss of Rs136.44 million to the exchequer. The officials have been booked under Section 9-A and Section 10 of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, which are punishable with up to 14 years’ imprisonment after conviction.

"The investigation revealed that the chairperson and members of the DRC [district recruitment committee] miserably failed in conducting transparent and fair recruitment process," the reference reads. "Moreover, instead of preparing a single merit list, four different merit lists were prepared, which neither showed basic pay scale against each post nor marks secured by the selected candidate [in the test]."



Former Hyderabad schools regional director Shamsuddin Dal (BPS-19), former Matiari district education officer (DEO) Ataullah Bhutto (BPS-19) and former Matiary elementary DEO Safia Ameer Arbab (BPS-19), besides two BPS-18 and as many BPS-17 officers have been booked.

According to the reference, Dal advertised posts for non-gazette teaching and non-teaching staff in April, 2012. But the advertisement did not mention the number of vacancies.

Dal, who is accused of violating the rules of appointment and misusing his authority as DRC chairperson, allegedly approved the recruitment of 440 candidates on non-gazette teaching and non-teaching posts. Among the appointees, 259 were teachers, including eight whose domicile districts were outside Hyderabad division.

Sindh Civil Servants (Appointment, Promotion and Transfer) Rules, 1974, allows giving the employment from BPS-3 to BPS-15 in a region or a district to the domicile holders of the same region or district.

The report claims that the DRC did not check the answer sheets or called the candidates for the interviews. Bhutto is accused of providing wrong information regarding the number of vacant posts in his district. He, subsequently, on completion of the process signed the four merit lists containing the names of 440 candidates. He is further charged with modifying the original job orders of 108 candidates.

During her brief stint as acting Matiari district DEO from March 19, 2012, to May 11, 2012, Safia Arbab allegedly supervised the written test. But she failed to ensure assessment of the answer sheets. She also signed two out of four merit lists, which contained 335 names of the qualified candidates, for the appointments.

Abdul Azeem Khan, deputy secretary of education and literacy (BPS-18), is accused of countersigning the four merit lists. By doing so, he exercised the authority of education secretary, which is a violation of Sindh finance department's policy and guidelines.

Furthermore, he directed the additional district accounts officer Bashir Ahmed Qureshi (BPS-18), another accused in the reference, to release salaries of all these teachers.

Former deputy district education officers (BPS-17) Rajab Khaskheli and Rasheed Ahmed Memon signed two lists each on the verbal instructions of Bhutto although they were not members of the DRC.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 26^th, 2016.