Govt has 7 days to fix bureaucracy: CEC

Political parties and civil society groups had told the Chief Election Commissioner of political appointments.

KARACHI:

With the police department reshuffled only two days ago, the Sindh bureaucracy is expected to witness a complete overhaul too.

On Thursday, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) gave the caretaker government seven days to appointment competent officials on the posts of the chief secretary, the secretaries of education, local government, home department, the deputy commissioners, mukhtiarkars, and education and police officers in the province. The first one to go will be the chief secretary, and the new one will then appoint fresh candidates with no political affiliations.

“We have received complaints against nearly 15 SSPs, eight district education officers and 20 deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners,” an official said. “Chief sahib [Ebrahim] has ordered their transfers to make the electoral process transparent.”

The ECP had directed the government on April 2 to remove all political appointments in the bureaucracy, but to no avail. When a delegation of Sindh writers, poets and intellectuals met the Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim on Wednesday, they informed him that nearly 65 political appointees of outgoing governments are working on senior positions in the police and the provincial bureaucracy.

In their memorandum, the Sindhi writers told Justice Ebrahim that the caretaker government is a shadow cabinet of the previous government. “Most ministers and advisers are loyal to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and its major coalition partners.” The writers felt this can influence the upcoming general elections.

The delegation also pointed out that the outgoing government recruited a large number of employees and posted its “cronies” on key positions, during their last days in power. “The ECP should ensure that the administrative machinery does not let the previous regime influence the forthcoming general elections.” They suggested an administrative reshuffling to ensure free and fair elections in Sindh.

Nevertheless, the current administrative reshuffling in the Sindh does not achieve its purpose. For instance, Fazullulah Pechuho has been appointed as the provincial secretary for education, even though he is the husband of Dr Azra Pechuho - an MNA candidate from Nawabshah.  Pechuho is also the brother-in-law of President Asif Ali Zardari and former PPP MNA Faryal Talpur. Since the election staff is mainly hired from the education department, it may be possible that Pechuho’s office will be exploited as an administrative instrument to manipulate electoral results.

The writers also complained about the principal secretary of the caretaker CM, Nadeem Kamran Balouch, who served as the finance secretary during the past five years, and the present home secretary, Malik Asrar Hussain, who served as the additional secretary of development during the past five years.

The delegation was also upset with the caretaker government’s decision to recruit 8,000 more policemen for the upcoming elections. “The people of Sindh are concerned how 8,000 policemen will be hired and trained in such a short time. We fear the large scale recruitment may be used eventually to influence the election process through loyal party workers.”

Former CM reacts

Former Sindh chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah was not happy with the ECP’s decision to reshuffle the bureaucracy and said that this is not the job of the election commission to transfer officials. “This is a direct interference in the affairs of the provincial government,” he said, adding that all bureaucrats are not political appointees of his government and cannot influence the election process.

“During the last elections, all bureaucrats were appointed by Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim in Sindh and General (retd) Pervez Musharraf in the rest of the country, but it did not affect the polls and we won the elections,” he pointed out, dispelling the impression that Sindh’s bureaucrats and the police were involved in pre-poll rigging.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th, 2013.