K-P govt mulls handing hot seat to company’s planning chief

Officials say Additional Chief Secretary Shahzad Bangash may take over chair of the board temporarily

PESHAWAR: Having fired the chief executive of the TransPeshawar transport company last week amid a hiring freeze imposed by the top poll body, the provincial government has decided to hand the hot seat on a temporary basis to an executive of the company.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government had dismissed TransPeshawar’s — the government owned urban mobility company for operating the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project — chief executive officer (CEO Altaf Durrani on May 2, accusing him of delaying the procurement of buses for the BRT project.

Now, sources in the K-P transport department say, the government plans to hand the post on a temporary basis to Fayyaz Khan, the general manager for planning in the company.

He had been appointed in the company in August 2017, along with the rest of the company’s top management.

Durrani’s dismissal had sparked uproar amongst the top management of TransPeshawar who protested against the government’s decision. Two top executives, Chief Finance Officer Safdar Shabir Awan, General Manager (Operations and Market Development) Imran Khan, and the chairman of the company’s board of directors Javed Iqbal resigned from their posts.

Officials close to the developments said that the sudden and extreme reaction by the top management of the company to Durrani’s dismissal had put the K-P government in trouble.

The executives, who quit their jobs, are believed to be experts in their fields. Their departure from the project at a time when the BRT in at a crucial stage, could mean delays in completing the project on time and thus jeopardise plans of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to use it as political capital in the upcoming general elections, officials believe.

Apart from convincing Fayyaz to take over the project as its acting-CEO, the government plans to hand Additional Chief Secretary Shahzad Bangash the task of taking over as the chairman of the TransPeshawar’s board.

The government is, however, facing problems in finding a replacement for GM Imran and CFO Awan.

The sources say that Imran and Awan are indispensible for the project’s smooth operation. The former because of his experience in running similar systems, while Awan is required to fulfill conditions of K-P’s loan agreement with the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Sources say Transport Secretary Kamran Rehman, Peshawar Commissioner and Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister Shahab Ali Shah and Peshawar Development Authority (PDA) Director General have tried to convince Imran and Awan to withdraw their resignations but have thus far met with little progress.

Both executives have sought time from the government on whether they will return to their posts or not.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 9^th, 2018.