Ban on recruitment: With hands tied, CDA cancels planned recruitment

More than 250,000 people had applied for the 1,089 vacant posts.

ISLAMABAD:

Over a quarter-of-a-million people who had applied for jobs in the Capital Development Authority (CDA) will have to look for work elsewhere after the civic agency abandoned planned recruitment against 1,000-odd vacant posts in BPS-1 through 19.

According to the CDA’s Human Resource (HR) directorate, 1,089 vacancies were advertised in May 2013 — during the tenure of the caretaker government. The posts were advertised after carrying out an HR audit in all the directorates.

The civic agency had received some 200,000 applications for 928 posts for grades 1 to 14, while around 50,000 people had applied for 161 posts in grades 16 to 19.

There are currently 18,635 sanctioned posts in the CDA, only 13,586 of which are occupied. Another 2,104 daily wagers and 306 contract employees are also among the agency’s staff.

“Recruitment plans were dropped on the directions of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government banning new recruitment in all federal government departments,” said a senior CDA official while requesting anonymity.

This is not the first time that the authority has backtracked after advertising vacancies. In 2009, the CDA advertised 650 vacancies for which around 280,000 people applied, before the civic agency dropped new hiring from its agenda.

A three-member judicial commission formed by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to investigate allegations of corruption and mismanagement in CDA had also found several grave violations of rules and procedures in the appointment of hundreds of people in CDA during the Pakistan People’s Party-led government’s tenure.

The commission had recommended that the CDA constitute a committee of senior officers headed by the chairman to scrutinise all appointments and remove ineligible persons and those hired on inflated salaries.

The commission also suggested disciplinary action against officials who approved the illegal appointments. The CDA has yet to determine whether the appointments were made on a political basis, while allegations remain that a significant number of the appointments held fake degrees.

The commission’s report stated that since 2008, around 1,776 regular appointments were made in CDA, while another 270 people were appointed on contract and 2,701 on daily wages.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 31^st, 2013.