Selective accountability?: Government to verify degrees of taxation dept officials

Employees asked to produce degrees, testimonials and certificates.

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government has decided to verify degrees and educational documents of all officials appointed to the excise and taxation department in the past five years.

A notification signed by the director general of the taxation department was issued by the establishment department on Friday upon the directives of the Adviser to Chief Minister on Excise and Taxation Mian Jamsheduddin.



The notification directed all excise and taxation officers in K-P to obtain degrees, testimonials, certificates, among other relevant documents from all employees who were appointed or recruited in the five years and get the documents verified from boards/universities/institutions. They will be required to send a self-contained report to the directorate as early as possible for submission.

Meanwhile, former K-P minister for excise and taxation Liaquat Shabab lashed out at Chief Minister (CM) Pervez Khattak, accusing him of undertaking the exercise due to his personal bias against the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) which he left over a rift to join the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). “Now after being appointed as CM, he (Khattak) has the authority to issue notices to any department to earth out illegal appointments. But this should be done for everyone and not just one department,” he said.

Shabab claimed the CM transferred many officials appointed under his tenure from the excise department to other bodies and argued it was not legal to ‘target’ a single department. “Inquiry should be held for every department.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 14^th, 2013.