Over 600 Nadra staffers sacked for issuing CNICs ‘illegally’

Nadra chief tells Senate panel that sacking took place after several inquiries

ISLAMABAD: Nadra has sacked over 600 of its employees for ‘illegally’ issuing CNICs to 160,286 aliens or non-residents of the country, Nadra Chairman Usman Mobin told the Senate’s Functional Committee on Less Developed Areas on Thursday.

“We have removed over 600 employees after conducting several inquiries into the illegal issuance of CNICs to aliens,” Mobin shared before the committee with Senator Mir Kabir in the chair.

To a question raised by Senator Nisar Muhammad as to who were the employees involved in such affairs, Mobin replied that more than 500 were data entry operators.

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When the committee was informed that minimum salary of such operators was Rs12,000 per month, Muhommad asked Mobin, “What salary are you earning chairman?”

The Nadra chief reluctantly replied, “Rs800,000.”

The senators said with one voice, “What else could be expected from poor operators who draw such a meagre salary, while their senior enjoys such a high pay grade.”

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The chairman of the committee advised, “Financially empower the Nadra employees to avert any corruption and wrongdoing in the system.”

Mobin told the committee that across-the-country about 160,286 confirmed aliens with families had been detected, of which 41,554 were in Khyber-Pakhtunkwa, 40,042 in Sindh, 38,063 in Punjab, 24,503 in Balochistan, 7,046 in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), 6,149 in Islamabad, 1,973 in Kashmir, 835 people from abroad and 121 in Gilgit-Baltistan.

“In the re-verification programme, about 78,939 intruders were found, 15,752 aliens were reported by the community and about 3,640 non-nationals voluntarily surrendered their CNICs,” he added.

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The Nadra chief added that they had unblocked about 155,385 CNICs temporarily and they needed to re-verify from deputy commissioners (DCs) of the districts concerned.

Senators also expressed concern over the DCs for sluggish verification which was taking time and creating trouble for citizens. The Nadra chief stated that they had nothing to do with district management except that data was shared with the authority.

Mobin stated that Nadra had so far issued CNICs to 110 million people.

Taking notice of the fact that Nadra and interior ministry’s officials do not share working paper with the committee, the committee chairman inquired, “Why is this committee not taken seriously by the authority and the ministry?”

The Nadra officials could not satisfy the committee members for not sharing the relevant documents of the agenda with them.

Similarly, over the steps taken by the interior ministry in maintaining law and order in Fata, the joint secretary of the ministry came without any preparation.

“I will share the details in the next meeting of the committee,” he said.

Kabir questioned his participation in the meeting without any details.