Alleged nepotism: Appointments of junior staff irks association of information officers

Demands director information and press secretary to the CM be replaced within a week.

The Information Officers Welfare Association, Directorate of Information Peshawar has expressed grave concern over the appointment of the junior most officers as director information and press secretary to the chief minister, demanding they be replaced within a week.

Bahramand Jan, a BPS-18 officer, has been appointed as director information while Ghulam Hussain, a BPS-17 officer, has been appointed as the press secretary to the CM, stated a handout released by the association on Tuesday.

In a meeting held at the Media Centre of the Directorate of Information on the same day, the senior most officers said implementation of the present government’s policy of bringing change in the department has been adopted in an adverse manner and is creating great unrest among officials. According to officials, PTI’s government could face a serious setback in implementing its policies if it does not reverse this trend.



Soon after the nomination of Pervez Khan Khattak as the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief minister, the then additional secretary information (now retired) Faridullah Khan presented a summary to incumbent information secretary Azmat Hanif Orakzai to post Bahramand Jan as director information with the recommendation to replace Shuaibuddin Khan, who was the most senior among the 40 officers. Consequently, Bahramand Jan, who stood 19th in the seniority list among the 28 BPS-18 officers, was made director information. Senior officer Zafar Mand Ali has filed a suit against this “injustice” and the court has issued notices to the parties concerned.

“Current director Bahramand Jan’s inadequate policies have frustrated senior officials who have refused to cooperate with him. Jan has appointed junior clerks and assistants as public relations officers to cabinet members in order to sideline all officials opposing his policies,” stated the handout.

The officers maintained the Directorate of Information has successfully run the public affairs of all the previous governments for the last 45 years. The PTI government, however, had sanctioned Rs4.5 million for establishing a media cell at the CM Secretariat in order to adjust its own people in the entity, they alleged.

The officials demanded Bahramand Jan be relieved of his position and the senior most official be appointed as the director instead. They added all junior clerks, assistants and low grade officers posted as PROs/press secretaries to the cabinet members should be removed and replaced by gazetted officials.

The officers have given a week’s deadline for the removal of director Jan and threatened to go on strike if their demands were not met.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 2^nd, 2013.