‘Over 1,200 SNGP employees hired illegally’

Senate committee directs gas company to recruit employees according to quotas.

ISLAMABAD:


A Senate special committee on Saturday observed that Sui Northern Gas Pipelines (SNGP) recruited 1,231 candidates over the last four years in violation of government policy on provincial quotas.


Just 70 out of 6,895 SNGP employees belong to Balochistan while Punjab tops the list with 5,156 recruits. The Senate panel was shocked to learn that only nine candidates from Balochistan and 11 from Sindh were recruited in Cadre-I during this period.

“The recruitment of 414 candidates without placing advertisements in newspapers is a severe violation of company rules,” observed the committee chairman, Senator Syed Nayyar Hussain Bokhari.


More than 786 candidates were appointed from Punjab in different cadres including more than 356 officers in Grade I to III, according to a senior official of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources. “All recruitments were made on the basis of nepotism by the outgoing managing directors of the gas companies, who defied the set rules for new appointments based on provincial quotas,” accused Senator Shahid Bugti. “Since its establishment 45 years ago, the Sui Gas Corporation as it was formerly known has continuously breached provincial quota for hiring candidates from Balochistan,” said Bugti.

Bokhari, who is also Leader of the House in the Senate, directed the ministry concerned to issue an official notification to the board of directorate to recruit candidates on merit and consider Balochistan’s quota in light of the 18th Amendment. Senator Dr Muhammad Malick stressed upon the implementation of the Civil Service Rules and official policy of the company for new recruitments. Local people should be given preference, he added.

SNGP’s human resources department received over 52,000 applications for the recruitments in question in response to various advertisements. Some 129 officials were recruited on executive posts in regional offices of the SNGP, a ministry official informed the lawmakers. Officials also informed the Senate panel that around 264 candidates were recruited on vacant positions of which 215 were recruited from Punjab and later posted to various stations. “The recruits were appointed because of relatives working in the company based on an annual agreement between the management and the collective bargaining agent,” according to SNGP’s Human Resources Department.

Similar issues were also found at the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), which are also being investigated.



Published in The Express Tribune, May 8th, 2011.
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