Secretariat Awards: Officials upset over nominations

Officials neglected in nominations for Rs50,000 cash awards to be handed out by Chief Minister

LAHORE: Junior officials of the Punjab Civil Secretariat have complained that they have been neglected in nominations for Rs50,000 cash awards to be handed out by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in a ceremony on Independence Day.  The Services and General Administration Department’s (S&GAD) Welfare and Cabinet Wings are arranging the ceremony and have decorated the offices at the Secretariat. “This will be the first such function under this government,” said an official. “Generally all that officers get from the chief minister is reprimands.”  But junior officials complained that the awards, meant to reward the most honest and hardworking officials, would not go to those who deserved them. Fifty officers are to be rewarded, meaning the chief minister will hand out a total of Rs2.5 million. The officials were nominated by the administrative secretaries. “The secretaries have just forwarded the names of their favourite officers without looking at the records of the officers with good reputations in their departments,” an official said. He said that the S&GAD had not set out criteria for nominations, and the secretaries had chosen all senior officers. Among the nominees are S&GAD Secretary (Regulations) Muhammad Ilyas, Faisalabad District Coordination Officer Naseem Sadiq and Chief Treasury Inspector Zubair Ahmed.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 14^th, 2011.