The tale of an ‘unwilling’ chief secretary

From the very word go, Kamran Ali Afzal has been grappling with one issue after another

LAHORE:

From the wheat crisis to the sugar crisis and from the fertiliser crisis to the crisis of price hike in general, it was business as usual during the one-year tenure of the incumbent Chief Secretary of Punjab, Kamran Ali Afzal.

It is a tenure that, reportedly, he himself now wants to be cut short owing to his alleged differences with the provincial government.

Kamran Ali Afzal, a BS-22 officer, was posted as CS Punjab by the then Usman Buzdar government in September 2021. Kamran Ali Afzal, not the senior-most officer in the province at the time of his posting, was seemingly challenged at the very outset of his posting by an officer more senior to him, Baber Hayat Tarar. He even reportedly issued a notification in this regard. However, Kamran Ali Afzal managed to get the issue resolved with the support of the then chief minister of Punjab.

Baber Hayat, as per the media reports, avoided attending meetings chaired by CS Punjab Kamran Ali Afzal those days.

From the very word go, the chief secretary has been grappling with one issue after another, the first being the issue of price hike, which continues even today, though much of it has to do with the overall deteriorating economic situation of the country.

This was followed by the sugar crisis, which was a managerial issue, though this issue had emerged before his tenure and aggravated during the tenure of his predecessor.

This was followed by the unavailability of fertilisers, which again was chiefly a managerial issue.

The crisis of wheat is an issue that he inherited from his predecessors, an issue that he would, God forbid, pass on to his successor.

These issues became public knowledge when the media took them up by reporting round-the-clock on the alleged shortcomings of the provincial administration armed with a long string of officers deputed to anticipate such crises and with layers of departments and companies tasked with ensuring that such issues are dealt with well before they ballooned into a full-blown crisis.

Even when responsibility is to be fixed, it normally rests with the low-ranking officers and for officers at higher grades, suspension is seen to be a major punishment in most cases.

Read Centre, Punjab at odds over transfer of Lahore CCPO

The Murree tragedy, which had claimed 22 lives, also took place during the tenure of Chief Secretary Kamran Ali Afzal. The incident was a direct outcome of alleged negligence by the civil and police administrations.

Currently, the chief secretary has been on a 14-day leave, during which he hoped to be repatriated to the Center and to be relieved of his duties as the chief secretary.

The Chairman of the Planning & Development Board, Abdullah Khan Sumbal, has assumed the formal charge of the CS’s office.

The chief secretary, reportedly, had differences with the provincial government on the issue of transfers and posting.

The chief secretary had requested the Central government back in August to post him out of the province, citing personal reasons.

He has once again reminded the central government of his desire to be posted out of the province.

However, his requests have not been entertained so far.

The provincial government, in view of the said request, has forwarded three names for the post of the chief secretary -- Babar Hayat Tarar, Ahmed Nawaz and Abdullah Khan Sumbal.

The chief secretary made himself controversial during the PML-N’s brief provincial tenure when he oversaw the controversial oath-taking ceremony of Hamza Shehbaz, a ceremony that was organized at Governor’s House against the incumbent governor’s will.

It was during this PML-N’s government’s brief tenure, with Kamran at the helm of affairs, that state machinery was allegedly used to “suppress PTI protesters”, employing “oppressive measures even against women and children” which included “vandalizing property of private citizens” and “gas shelling PTI protesters” including women and children.

The chief secretary was reached for his comments but to no avail. The CS’s media office also refused to respond to questions regarding Kamran Ali Afzal’s tenure as the chief secretary.

A Grade-20 officer posted in Punjab, on request of anonymity, said that the CS saw three different government’s tenures, and, by default, he was to bear the brunt of their failures as well.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd, 2022.