NAB-worthy: ‘Illegal’ hiring may land Rehman Malik in trouble

National Assembly told former interior minister and top bureaucrats made bulk hiring

ISLAMABAD: Former interior minister Rehman Malik and top bureaucrats in interior ministry may have violated laws by hiring 147 persons in Passport Office, which, if investigated by the anti-graft body, may land them into trouble.

Malik, who served as interior minister from 2008-2013, recommended the hiring of 64 of these persons.

Khawaja Siddique Akbar, the then secretary interior, awarded jobs to 20 persons while being the ‘recommending authority’. Similarly, Syed Wajid Ali Shah, who was the DG at the Directorate General of Immigration & Passport, was the ‘recommending authority’ in 63 cases.

These revelations were made in the written response from the Ministry of Interior to a question by Iqbal Muhammad Ali Khan of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan. Khan had inquired about the number of employees hired for the Machine Readable Passport and Machine Readable Visa Project without any advertisement, examination or interview.

According to official documents, 147 persons were inducted as data entry operators, printing staff and support staff for the project on daily wages. The recruitment, made during Malik's tenure, did not follow the due course as the ministry did not interview applicants while provincial quota requirements were also disregarded.

The documents suggest a nexus of the three individuals – Malik, Akbar and Shah – in making illegal appointments. In many cases, Malik was the ‘recommending authority’ while Shah acted as ‘approving authority’. Shah also acted both as ‘recommending authority’ and ‘approving authority’ in numerous cases while awarding the jobs.

Shah, the former DG Passport and Immigration, also acted as ‘approving authority’ when ex-secretary interior Akbar acted as the ‘recommending authority’.

This is not Akbar’s first brush with controversy. In 2012, he was investigated by the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) for alleged involvement in the ephedrine scandal.

The domiciles of those recruited reveal that the majority were hired from Punjab. The remaining recruits were from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Karachi and other areas but that number is negligible.

Of those recruited with Punjab domiciles, 21 were from Sargodha and 12 from Faisalabad. A total of 10 persons were hired from Gujranwala and seven from Rawalpindi.

Back in 2001, former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was arrested in a similar case. The National Accountability Bureau, established as an anti-corruption agency by the military government in 1999, had charged him along with other politicians with misusing his authority as National Assembly Speaker in the 1990s. The military-controlled NAB specially accused him of hiring up to 600 people from among his constituents and placing them on the government's payroll without fulfilling the required procedure.