Provincial administration lacks a formal head in the absence of the chief minister, the chief secretary and a full-time additional chief secretary.
Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif left for London last weekend while Chief Secretary Nasir Mehmood Khosa went on a two-week ex-Pakistan leave on April 3. No officer was given the additional charge of chief secretary is Khosa’s absence.
There are two grade-22 officers - Planning and Development Board chairman Javed Aslam and senior Board of Revenue member Sami Saeed – serving in the province but they were not given the additional charge.
Jalal Sikandar Sultan Raja, the grade-20 Services and General Administration Department secretary, was given the additional charge as additional chief secretary (ACS) when Nadeem Hassan Asif was promoted as the chief minister’s principal secretary on January 1.
A senior officer, requesting anonymity, said that additional charge should have been given to the acting ACS or another senior officer to supervise administrative matters. “Many summaries are pending with the CS office,” he added. The Punjab government spokesperson said that there was “no need” to assign additional charge of chief secretary (CS). All summaries are being sent directly to the chief minister without going to the CS office. There was no matter pending on which the CS is the only competent authority, he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 6th, 2012.
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