Passco officials decry unfair recruitment, promotions

As many as 50 officials were allegedly recruited illegally.

LAHORE:

The Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) management has been accused of being involved in questionable actions during its recruitment process.

The management allegedly recruited fifty men who failed to fulfill the requirement criteria and standards, for the posts of junior clerks (BS-5) to deputy general manager (BS-19), according to an official who requested anonymity.

Among the recruited men, 24 were selected for the post of general deputy manager in BS-19, eight for project managers in BS-18, four as deputy project manager in BS-17 and the remaining for BS-16. Seven former army men including five lieutenant colonels and two majors were selected and offered superior salary packages as compared with other civil officers inducted along with them.

It was also alleged that they were given the test questions prior to the exam to ensure their selection. The suspicion was raised when Passco advertised various posts on April 9, to call for applications from candidates on the basis of experience and qualification with the time-frame of only five days to apply, as opposed to the usual seven to 10 working days.

According to a Passco official the recruitment of these 50 men was unfair to serving staffers who were next in line for promotion, having waited for promotions for the past 20 to 25 years. As a result, two letters were written by the president of All Passco Staff Union to the managing director (MD).

The letters addressed the ineligibility of the applicants and the fraudulent manner in which the written test was taken and also included hard evidence for the case. The MD took notice of the letter and an eight-member committee chaired by General Manager human resources Lt Col (retd) Mohammad Younis Raja, was put together to determine whether the allegations were true or not.

The committee decided to take necessary action to deal with the offence. It also promised strict action against the persons involved in the leakage of the test paper. However, later in May, the management issued appointment letters to the 50 officials for a period of two years with a probationary period of six months.

Officials who have been waiting for promotions were unhappy with this, however. These include field staff such as the assistant purchase inspector who was recruited in 1980 and has not been promoted even after 30 years of service to Passco. Other purchase inspectors recruited in 1992 also suffer from the same crisis. As many as 800 officials have expressed frustration due to being kept away from their right of promotion to the next scales of seniority since 1995.

An even larger number of officials who retired from service during 2011-12 remained in the same scale they were recruited in initially.

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