Royal mess: Bureaucrats get professional cleaners, for free

Around 280 sanitary workers employed unlawfully at various officers’ residences.

ISLAMABAD:

Why should bureaucrats pay for domestic help when the bloated government workforce can afford to ‘lend’ them a few helping hands?

In a startling exposition, sources have revealed that as many as 280 lower-cadre employees of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) are working as domestic workers at the private residences of federal secretaries and prominent CDA officers in Islamabad.

“Most of these employees are from the civic agency’s sanitary staff. They are actually engaged in housecleaning work and such at the private residences of senior federal government officers, former CDA chairmen, board members, and other officers past and present, along with office bearers of the CDA labour union,” informed a CDA human resource wing official while asking not to be named.

The 280 employees are costing the CDA Rs4 million per month in salaries alone.

“A list of employees working as private domestic workers has been compiled. They will soon be asked to report to the CDA so that they can be assigned to do the work for which they were hired,” the official added.

The data available indicates that out of the 280, some 200 employees are working at the houses of CDA officers of grade-16 and above. The rest are working at the houses of federal government officers including federal secretaries and former CDA chairmen.

Nadeem Hassan Asif, a former CDA chairman who was posted as secretary to the President of Pakistan on December 7, 2013, still avails the services of four such employees at his house, while former CDA chairmen Imtiaz Inayat Elahi and Zaffar Iqbal have one CDA employee each at their respective residences. It has been 18 years since Iqbal served in the CDA.

Similarly, former CDA board members Kamran Qureshi and Chaudhry Munir with one employee each, while SM Bokhari has three such workers, despite have left the authority being devoid of the authority to do so for years.

Dr Izat, who retired from the CDA hospital some 15 years ago, also has one employee working at his home.

Former directors Malik Zafar Iqbal and Faisal Nisar Chaudhry have one and two employees at their homes, respectively.

Curiously, former Supreme Court Bar Association president Yasin Azad also has two employees serving his household, while CDA Labour Union Secretary General Chaudhry Yasin has three CDA employees working at his home.

Similarly, former administration DG Major (retd) Hassan is availing the services of two workers, while Naveed Tarin, currently serving in the FIA, has one such employee.

Another curious case is that of Sajjad Tareen, a journalist living in Gulshan-e-Sehat, who has one CDA employee at his home. Incumbent officers including Rawal Khan Maitla and Habibur Rehman, also benefit from this unlawful arrangement, along with several others.

Astonishingly, some of these employees have spent over 10 years at private residences.

“We have 40 such cases in the Sanitation Wing where a worker was temporarily allowed to serve at the house of some officer in the past, and never returned,” said a senior Sanitation Wing officer, acknowledging the problem. He bluntly admitted that he does not know where exactly his staffers are deputed.

He said the 1,600 sanitary workers in the CDA barely manage to clean up the city.

“Imagine the difficulties we face when it comes to on-ground work, as the available strength is really only 1,320 sanitary workers,” he lamented.

In the recent past, the Sanitation Wing raised this issue with high ups, who had assured that all such employees working illegally will be returned to their original jobs, added the senior officer.

CDA spokesperson Asim Khichi said he was not aware of the issue, while claiming, “It will be brought to the notice of the CDA high ups and if true, such employees will be from private residences immediately.”

Secretary to the President Nadeem Hasan Asif categorically denied the report. “No CDA employee is obligated to perform domestic work at my house.” Confusingly, he then said that if sanitary workers voluntarily clean up the area around his, it is an entirely separate matter.

CDA Labour Union Secretary General Chaudhry Yasin, also denied the charge.

“I represent the CDA labourers and live in a small, three-room house. I privately hired domestic workers and pay them from my own pocket,” Yasin said.  But he admitted that the practice is relatively common.

He said the practice is not just limited to the homes of CDA officers and senior bureaucrats, but also their kith and kin.

Yasin also named a senior PPP politician who availed this “service” for almost six years until, the CDA recently withdrew it.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 7^th, 2014.