Powerful connections: Middlemen play salesmen for govt jobs

Men claiming close contacts with ministers extract bribes from people while promising them jobs.

QAMBER SHAHDADKOT/KARACHI:

Aside from idiots, every village also has a pompous middleman, who will never stop crowing about his connections to the rich, powerful and political.

This middleman has risen to greater heights of late, to become a broker of Sindh government jobs. Ahmed Khoso, a farmer in Qamber Shahdadkot’s Thorhi Bijar village, sold his cattle in 2009 to pay a man with connections Rs100,000 in return for a government job. “My graduate son had applied a number of times for the post of a primary teacher,” Khoso told The Express Tribune last week. “We are still waiting for them to deliver.”

Khoso was among a few people who have taken their protest to the Qamber Press Club in the hope that the media will highlight the racket. The business is being run by a group of men, who are known in their areas as belonging to the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. They claim to act on behalf of different provincial ministers to take the liberty of promising people lucrative government posts. In return for their ‘work’ they charge unemployed youngsters. After extracting the money, they keep the applicant hanging on with pacifying promises or different excuses of delays. Thus, educational qualifications, experience or merit are relegated to the garbage bin.

In another case, Shamsuddin, a retired government employee, paid Rs57,000 to a local personal assistant of Food Minster Nadir Magsi in 2008 for a work visa for his son in the UAE. The Express Tribune has a copy of his son’s application on the food minister’s official letterhead. It was addressed to Khursheed Ahmed Shah, then minister for overseas Pakistanis.

Shamsuddin quoted the minister’s personal assistant as saying: “Nadir sahib has asked me to get an application on his letterhead, which is the only quick way to get the work visa. We will directly send it to the federal overseas minister in Islamabad. Do not worry, your son will get employment in UAE within a month.” Whenever Shamsuddin approached the minister’s PA, he was told that they had “forwarded” his case and all he should do is wait.

Now four years have passed but Shamsuddin and his son’s regular visits to the camp offices run by Magsi and other PPP leaders have been in vain. “We have also briefed Nadir Magsi about our case, but there has been no tangible result,” he said. “It looks like that there is a network and they are all involved in selling government jobs rather than employing people on merit.” He added that he was not alone and many people have paid money for jobs either in Pakistan or abroad.

For his part, however, Minister for Food Nadir Magsi told The Express Tribune that neither was he involved in any kind of fraud nor had he accepted any bribe from anyone for a job. “We are providing employment without any discrimination. How can we sell jobs,” he asked, adding that thousands of government employees in education, health and other departments have been appointed on merit. “The PPP has set a precedent in giving jobs to people. Not only fresh jobs, but we have restored all employees who were sacked during the regimes of Nawaz Sharif and Pervez Musharraf.”

When his attention was drawn to the use of his letterhead, he said: “I have no idea about it. Anyone can use it to defame me.”

However, his personal assistant, Abdul Kareem Brohi, who is also affiliated with the PPP, admitted that he had taken money from a few people to send them aboard. “It was not only my fault,” he said. “The focal person who was dealing with the case has managed to escape.” He promised to return the money within ten days. The people are still waiting.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 25^th, 2012.