A bumpy ride: Grade-five employee drives his way up the ladder, but finally crashes

Khaliq has unfair promotions and embezzlement allegations to his credit.

KARACHI: The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s (KMC) education director, Muhammad Abdul Khaliq, has had a meteoric rise, a rise that has seen him become what he is today, having started as a lowly driver on Basic Pay Scale (BPS)-five.

While there are several pending inquiries against Khaliq, which officials seem almost unwilling to conduct, he continued to oversee around 630 educational institutions around the city.

On Thursday, however, all that changed when he was ordered by the KMC administrator Rauf Akhtar Farooqui to relinquish his post and report to his office. Meanwhile, Muhammad Ahsan has been made the education director.

While in charge

“This year, we have focused on development, while a plan to establish several ‘Oxford schools’ is also in the offing,” Khaliqi told The Express Tribune during a recent visit to his office. ‘Oxford schools’ seemed to be the director’s newly-invented term for O’ and A’ level schools.



While talking to The Express Tribune he expanded on what he meant by focusing on development. He was referring to around 57 ongoing development schemes that have a Rs234 million allocation, most of which are related to renovation and rehabilitation of existing schools.

“A sizeable amount is allocated for the repair and renovation of existing schools in the name of development,” revealed another KMC education official. “This repair and renovation work has been going on for many years and no one questions why it doesn’t end.”

Khaliq was quick to swat away the criticism. “A lot of officials try to exploit me and have opened preposterous inquiries against me on several matters,” he said. “Former metropolitan commissioner, Matanat Ali Khan, even went as far as to suspend me from this position. But everyone knows that was personal.”

However, Khan’s final show-cause notice issued in Khaliq’s name on March 7, 2013, stated otherwise. “I am of the opinion that the allegations framed [against you] need not be probed into through an inquiry committee,” said Khan in the show-cause notice. “There is sufficient ground that disciplinary action should be taken against you under the prescribed rules.”

Rise to the top

In 1988, Khaliq was appointed as a driver to the chairperson of the Central District Municipal Corporation (DMC). The driver’s post has no promotion opportunities. The only way that a driver may gain a promotion is through reappointment, which requires approval from the Sindh chief minister. “Since Khaliq possesses no such order from the chief minister, his so-called promotions should be declared null and void,” stated Khan.

From there, Khaliq was transferred to the Central DMC health department on the post of health sub-inspector. Khaliq was promoted to the BPS-14 post of sanitary inspector in 2005. According to Khan’s statement, none of that was legal. “As per the law, his transfer and subsequent promotions are a clear breach of the rules and regulations,” Khan pointed out. “Besides, he does not hold a diploma in sanitation, which is a requirement for the post.”

Farooqui refused to the see the validity of Khan’s argument, pointing towards other misdemeanours to justify this one. “When around 90 per cent of KMC employees are appointed, promoted and transferred in this way, I don’t understand why one of them is being singled out?”

In 2010, Khaliq was promoted to BPS-16 on alleged fake orders and academic certificates. Even as the inquiry on that promotion was pending, he received two more promotions - one in 2011 to become a BPS-17 officer and the second to later become the KMC education director, a BPS-18 post.

However, despite all the allegations and controversies of an incredible career, Khaliq continued to sit adamantly on the throne of the education director, that is, until Thursday, 26 years after he started off as a driver.

Serious allegations: Embezzlement and fraud

Allegations of unfair promotions are not the end of the line for KMC’s Muhammad Abdul Khaliq’s controversies.

Former commissioner Matanat Ali Khan claims Khaliq has been involved in ‘clear financial embezzlement and fraudulent claim of government funds’. Khaliq was found drawing dual salaries for a period of six months from two different departments of the now defunct City District Government Karachi.

In what is yet another controversy to his credit, the education director was suspended from his post by the KMC’s human resources department for drawing salaries of ghost employees worth Rs4.1 million.

It seems that all the controversies surrounding him have finally caught up.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th, 2014.