Cabinet appoints NDRMF head

Dismisses bureaucracy pressure to hire inexperienced candidate for technical job

ISLAMABAD:

The federal cabinet on Tuesday approved the appointment of Bilal Anwar as head of the National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF), staving off pressure from the bureaucracy that had been lobbying to appoint an inexperienced retired bureaucrat to handle a technical job.

However, the appointment of Anwar – an expert in climate finance and policy – became possible only after Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar resisted pressure from the bureaucracy of the Ministry of Planning, Planning Commission (PC) and the Prime Minister’s Office, sources told The Express Tribune.

The fund is placed under the Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives.

After the cabinet meeting, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said that the cabinet had approved the appointment of Bilal Anwar as the chief executive officer of NDRMF.

The bureaucracy-dominated board of NDRMF had recommended Muhammad Ashraf as the top candidate and Syed Asif Hussain and Bilal Anwar as the covering candidates.

The Express Tribune had reported two months ago that Mohammad Ashraf was not a suitable candidate for a technical position. He is a retired bureaucrat and has done Masters in International Relations from Quaid-e-Azam University in 1985.

Syed Asif Hussain, a serving bureaucrat, did his PhD in Agriculture from Louisiana State University, the United States, and Post-graduate Diploma in Environmental Management from Maastricht School of Management, the Netherlands.

Bilal Anwar has the most relevant experience in climate change. He has played a role in framing and development of international climate policy.

But the board of NDRMF approved Muhammad Ashraf, former secretary of parliamentary affairs and water resources, as its recommended candidate for the position of CEO in November 2021.

Interestingly, in October 2021 the same NDRMF board had declined to endorse the candidacy of Ashraf and referred the matter back to the nomination committee to review its proposal, showed official documents.

The documents showed that the PC board in October 2021 did not approve the name of Muhammad Ashraf and sent the matter back to the nomination committee.

But the nomination committee did not change its original panel and sent the same to the NDRMF board, which the board subsequently endorsed.

The Rules of Business 1973 empower a federal minister to approve a summary before its submission to the federal cabinet.

The bureaucrats tried that Asad Umar stick to the panel recommended by the NDRMF board, said the sources. After Umar sent the summary, it remained stuck in the PM’s Office for some time, they added.

NDRMF had been set up for disaster preparedness with a loan of $200 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The post of chief executive has remained vacant since September 2020 and the government thrice advertised the position. The shortlisted candidates during the second and third attempts were largely the same.

The bureaucracy also wanted to get past decisions taken in the absence of the permanent CEO ratified by the cabinet. But Asad Umar did not endorse the proposal.

PBS members

Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said that the federal cabinet also approved the appointment of three new members of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) – the national data collecting agency also under the administrative control of the planning ministry.

There were three vacant posts of functional members – member economic statistics, member resources management and member support services.

The cabinet approved the appointment of Aziz Ullah Khattak as member economic statistics, Muhammad Asif Khan as member resources management and Muhammad Sarwar Gondal as member support services, said the information minister.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 5^th, 2022.

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