Caretaker govt approves unlawful promotions

Hundreds of unlawful promotions of junior officers in School Education Department on basis of nepotism, bribery

KARACHI:

In the absence of an elected government, a caretaker administration is tasked with overseeing the steady functioning of state apparatus until elections are held however, when officials holding ad hoc appointments start exceeding the purview of their authority, bribery and corruption start dominating the recruitment and promotion process of employees across all departments.

Despite the previous elected government renouncing the promotion of non-qualifying officers on the basis of bribery, the current caretaker administration has allegedly given their approbation for hundreds of unlawful promotions of junior officers in the School Education Department on the basis of nepotism and bribery, with many employees from Grades 1 to 4 promoted to Grade 11, triggering resentment among many senior employees, who contest that the rules of seniority among other recruitment formalities have been utterly disregarded during the controversial promotion process.

For instance, Farhanul Haq, an employee at the Government Boys Secondary School in Liaquatabad, was appointed by the department in his current post way back in 1993. “There are 17 other employees like me, who have been awaiting their promotion since decades. It’s demoralizing to see our 20 years junior officers receiving the promotion that we had been eyeing for so long,” bemoaned Farhan.

According to details obtained by the Express Tribune, on 5th January 2024, the School Education Department had announced the contentious promotions of 397 non-teaching staff from Grades 1 to 4 to Grade 11, under the recommendation of the Departmental Promotion Committee also known as the Scrutiny Committee. Furthermore, it was learnt that most of these promoted employees were not qualified for the upgrade either due to unwarranted absences from duty, non-clearance of dues, non-completion of qualifying terms or non-fulfilment of conditions of seniority.

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“A veteran officer awaiting promotion since 1987 was ignored, while a novice hired in 2017 was promoted. This is a pure case of bribery, hidden behind the guise of the Scrutiny Committee’s decision,” asserted Yar Muhammad Baladi, Director School Education Karachi (Primary and Secondary), who went on to inform that he was preparing a report on the matter, which will soon be taken up to the Secretary of the School Education Department for review.

It is worthy of mentioning that due to these violations, there is a lot of frustration and anxiety among the employees of the department who were awaiting their promotions since a very long time and are now very close to retirement but could not be promoted since they refused to give bribes. In essence, the bribes have allowed promotions to be given to employees recruited in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2017, 2018 and 2019 while taking away the right of promotion from the senior employees recruited back in the 1980s and 1990s.

Hence, in the aftermath of these promotions, the situation in the Directorate has become so grim that many District Education Officers (DEOs) have written a letter to the School Education Department imploring it to cancel these promotions immediately.

When contacted, a District Education Officer, revealed on the condition of anonymity that the DEO’s of central, south, west and Malir districts had also written letters in order to call out the Scrutiny Committee for manipulating its privileges.

In an attempt to inquire further on the matter, the Express Tribune reached out to the Secretary of School Education, Shireen Narejo, but no response was given.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd, 2024.