Trimming the fat: CDA mulls downsizing
New HR policy is in line with government’s austerity measures.
New HR policy is in line with government’s austerity measures. PHOTO: FILE.
ISLAMABAD:
In light of the government’s plans for rightsizing in government departments which are not delivering as per expectations, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has expedited the process of scrutinising recruitments made by the previous government.
News of this development sent a panic wave among 3,000 CDA employees who were inducted in the previous government’s tenure. The authority’s new human resource policy, approved by the CDA Board on Friday, calls for rightsizing of human resource. Hundreds of staff members hired in the previous term are yet to be regularised.
In their ‘helplessness’, the vulnerable employees are planning to launch a protest after learning about the new policy, calling it ‘a planned conspiracy to snatch livelihood from the poor’.
The incumbent chairman of the authority, who served the Punjab government in various important positions and is considered close to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz top leadership, is likely to take cover of recent recommendations of a judicial commission, formed by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) over massive recruitments in CDA, to materialise the rightsizing plan.
A source in the authority’s Human Resource directorate confirmed that a list of employees, inducted during the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) regime, was recently submitted to the office of CDA Chairman Nadeem Hassan Asif.
The IHC-formed commission had stated in its report that since February 2008, around 2,701 people were appointed in CDA on daily-wage basis, 270 on contract basis, 58 on special scales and four as consultants. The number does not include the 1,776 regular appointments made during the same period.
Out of the 2,971 daily wagers and contractual employees, the services of some 890 employees were regularised on the recommendations of a sub-committee on regularisation headed by PPP MNA Khurshid Shah. The judicial commission had criticised the committee’s direction of regularising the employees, stating they were not entitled owing to the short length of service in the authority.
The commission had suggested that a committee of senior CDA officers be formed to scrutinise all the appointments and report back to the court after terminating persons who were ineligible or hired on inflated salaries. A committee was constituted by the authority’s former chairman but it did not bear fruit.
When approached for his version, Asif said, “I cannot comment over the issue on phone”.
A board member of the authority, speaking anonymously as recently a verbal direction by the chairman has barred interaction with the media, said the rightsizing plan has delayed recruitments for 1,089 posts of BS-1 to BS-19 grade recently advertised in the press. As per rough estimates compiled by the administration Wing, around 0.25 million people applied for these posts.
A recent HR audit further states that currently 3,000 sanctioned posts in the Authority are vacant.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 30th, 2013.
In light of the government’s plans for rightsizing in government departments which are not delivering as per expectations, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has expedited the process of scrutinising recruitments made by the previous government.
News of this development sent a panic wave among 3,000 CDA employees who were inducted in the previous government’s tenure. The authority’s new human resource policy, approved by the CDA Board on Friday, calls for rightsizing of human resource. Hundreds of staff members hired in the previous term are yet to be regularised.
In their ‘helplessness’, the vulnerable employees are planning to launch a protest after learning about the new policy, calling it ‘a planned conspiracy to snatch livelihood from the poor’.
The incumbent chairman of the authority, who served the Punjab government in various important positions and is considered close to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz top leadership, is likely to take cover of recent recommendations of a judicial commission, formed by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) over massive recruitments in CDA, to materialise the rightsizing plan.
A source in the authority’s Human Resource directorate confirmed that a list of employees, inducted during the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) regime, was recently submitted to the office of CDA Chairman Nadeem Hassan Asif.
The IHC-formed commission had stated in its report that since February 2008, around 2,701 people were appointed in CDA on daily-wage basis, 270 on contract basis, 58 on special scales and four as consultants. The number does not include the 1,776 regular appointments made during the same period.
Out of the 2,971 daily wagers and contractual employees, the services of some 890 employees were regularised on the recommendations of a sub-committee on regularisation headed by PPP MNA Khurshid Shah. The judicial commission had criticised the committee’s direction of regularising the employees, stating they were not entitled owing to the short length of service in the authority.
The commission had suggested that a committee of senior CDA officers be formed to scrutinise all the appointments and report back to the court after terminating persons who were ineligible or hired on inflated salaries. A committee was constituted by the authority’s former chairman but it did not bear fruit.
When approached for his version, Asif said, “I cannot comment over the issue on phone”.
A board member of the authority, speaking anonymously as recently a verbal direction by the chairman has barred interaction with the media, said the rightsizing plan has delayed recruitments for 1,089 posts of BS-1 to BS-19 grade recently advertised in the press. As per rough estimates compiled by the administration Wing, around 0.25 million people applied for these posts.
A recent HR audit further states that currently 3,000 sanctioned posts in the Authority are vacant.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 30th, 2013.