K-P set to slash 84,000 jobs

Report questions need for recruitment when depts are operating smoothly without it

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to eliminate close to 84,000 positions lying vacant in various provincial government departments for the past three years.

“The K-P government has directed various departments to submit their replies on the vacant positions, if not necessary, we are going to finish it,” an officer of the provincial finance department told The Express Tribune.

“According to the rules business, if a position remains vacant for six months and the department concerned does not request the government to appoint fill it, it means that the said department does not need the position, so it is going to end automatically with the consent of the government,” the officer explained.

According to a report presented in the cabinet meeting few days ago, these jobs will be struck off from the provincial government’s scroll once respective departments submit report.

The working of government has not been affected due to absence of appointments on 84,000 jobs, said the report available with The Express Tribune on Saturday. “These vacancies should be eliminated if the government can work without them,” the report said.

The report said the performance of any government department was not suffering due to zero usage of these vacant positions.

“Every case has its own story, few are sub judice, few position have other issues, so we are inspecting various cases and soon the elimination are the end result of 85 thousand positions,” the officer said.

In the recently announced budget, the provincial government had announced creating 47,000 new jobs including 30,000 for settled districts and 17,000 for merged areas.

The budget document also states that the provincial government will help create 40,000 to 50000 more jobs in private sector.

It states that funding skill development, youth, entrepreneurship and promoting small and medium enterprise sector will create an environment feasible for more hiring in private sector.

Moreover, K-P government had allocated Rs256 million for promotion and enhancement of digital jobs in the province.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 23^rd, 2019.