Voicing concerns: Disregarding merit, shoulder promotions continue in Pesco

Senior employees say they are being ignored.

PESHAWAR:

Nearly 200 employees of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) have allegedly received ‘shoulder promotions’, said sources in the power company.

They said shoulder promotions, (the process of promoting employees while disregarding standard procedure), in various offices of Pesco was an administrative flaw and a matter of concern for senior employees.

One official said the company is passing through a critical phase and is burdened with huge financial losses amounting to nearly Rs3 billion a month. The losses were caused by power theft and non-payment of dues by customers, he added.

Another source said there have been a number of incidents where a lineman is wrongly promoted to line superintendent, while many superintendents have been made sub-divisional officers (SDOs). He said this was illegal and undermined merit.

“Haji Yaqub Khan is a ‘shoulder promoted’ officer at Pesco and is currently serving as an SDO, Executive Engineer (XEN) and as deputy director technical (DDT),” alleged the official.

Another Pesco official Arbab Iltaf said there has been an increase in shoulder promotions in the presence of the Hydro-Electric Central Labour Union’s (HECLU) Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Chapter, which allegedly promoted blue-eyed employees through pressure tactics.

He said that the union was authorised to work as a Collective Bargaining Agent (CBA) for Pesco employees in K-P, but has recently been replaced by Employees Pegham Union.

The National Industrial Relation Commission is the body that issues a CBA certificate authorising a union to work for protecting the rights of Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) employees, said Iltaf.

“We told the authorities that HECLU is no more authorised to work as a CBA,” said Iltaf. He added that the Pesco chief has been asked to end the practice of shoulder promotions and instead promote deserving employees. Another Pesco official said several SDO posts in various Pesco offices were vacant in K-P, but were being managed by unqualified junior employees.

“If a vacant SDO post can be run by an unqualified inspector, what is the need of the post in the first place?” he questioned.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2012.