Reshuffling: Shah Farman to be replaced over ‘incompetence’

100 employees of info dept transferred under government’s rationalisation policy .

PESHAWAR:

Minister for Information Shah Farman is expected to be replaced with Minister for Higher Education Mushtaq Ghani in yet another shuffle under the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government.

Ghani will reportedly manage both portfolios.

According to an insider, Farman is being replaced after complaints were received about him being “incompeten[t] and failing to respond to media queries.”

However, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan’s office in charge Naeemul Haq denied these reports. According to Haq, Farman had asked the party chief to reassign him. “Shah Farman will continue as the chief spokesperson for the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief minister,” said Haq.

Several reshufflings have taken place over the first year of the provincial government’s tenure. In November last year, two ministers of the Qaumi Watan Party were removed from the provincial cabinet over allegations of corruption. As a reaction, the QWP broke away from the coalition government.

Similarly, in May, health minister Shaukat Yousafzai and adviser to the chief minister for transport Yasin Khan Khalil were also sacked from the cabinet for being incompetent.

Policy of ‘rationalisation’

Meanwhile, officials of the provincial information directorate and regional information directorates have expressed reservations over the government’s decision to ‘rationalise’ the provincial information department.

Over 100 employees have been transferred or accommodated in other government departments. However, they are unhappy because they claim they have been given “irrelevant jobs”.

The Express Tribune has learnt that 138 employees, including 14 assistant directors, among other officials, have been transferred to other departments irrespective of their qualifications.

Moreover, 14 officials have also been demoted from basic pay scale-18 to BPS-17, 22 being the highest.

Information Officer Ibne Amin and Press Secretary to the Chief Minister Ghulam Hussain Ghazi have been placed at the disposal of the agriculture department to be posted at the office of the director general of livestock and dairy department.

Pakhtunkhwa Radio FM 92.6 Mardan Station Manager Shamsul Haq is now at the disposal of the construction and works department’s Peshawar chief engineer, while one assistant director has been transferred to the excise and taxation department even though he is reportedly unfamiliar with the taxation process.

Furthermore, another officer of the information department has been sent to the public health department.

Requesting anonymity, a former assistant director of the information directorate told The Express Tribune that he was unsure why the government took the decision to transfer employees to seemingly irrelevant departments.

Several information department officials, qualified in social sciences and literature, have now been posted to the forest, excise and taxation, agriculture and public health departments, he said.

He added the transferred officials have been directed to report to their new offices within a week of receiving the notification, whereas some are being told to join sooner.

The decision to dissolve the provincial information directorate was taken by the government in late May.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 10^th, 2014.