Bogus inductions against sacked employees

The fraud was caught when a list of these workers was sent to the AGPR for enrollment as regular public servants

ISLAMABAD: In a sheer misuse of law, scores of individuals impersonated as sacked employees of government departments who were supposed to be reinstated under an incentive of the PPP-led government announced after coming in to power in 2008.

Some 8,000 employees whom the government of then premier Nawaz Sharif fired between 1996 and 1999 were to get their jobs back under the Sacked Employees Reinstatement Ordinance promulgated in February 2009.

According to documents available with The Express Tribune, officials in the Federal Directorate of Education, that falls directly under the education ministry, tampering the records of 407 employees allegedly sacked on political grounds during the tenure of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, inducted 121 people in different cadres.

Not only were these persons allocated offices in the supplementary posts, especially created to accommodate sacked employees, but some of them were paid a year’s arrears from a fund especially created for the purpose before anyone could detect the scam.

The government promulgated a Presidential Order Sacked Employees (Reinstatement) Ordinance to provide relief to persons in corporations, autonomous bodies or in government service who were appointed during the period November 1, 1993 to November 30, 1996 and dismissed, removed, terminated or given forced golden handshakes during November 1, 1996 to December 31, 1998.

Under the law, these employees were to be reinstated immediately in service on one scale higher than their substantive scale of post at the time of their termination and report for duties to their respective department. They were also entitled to get salaries for the past three years as arrears.

As soon as the ordinance was promulgated, the government departments started receiving applications for employees sacked during Sharif’s era.

A list of 407 sacked employees was compiled by the Federal Directorate of Education and supplementary posts were created in different schools of the federal capital territory.

Since many of the genuinely sacked employees did not avail the reinstatement option because they had already gotten other jobs, some officials at the directorate allegedly in connivance with a key figure at the education ministry tampered with the list and inducted 121 new people in place of the genuinely sacked employees.

These newly inducted ‘fake employees’ of different cadres, mainly teachers, were issued reinstatement letters and posting orders against the supplementary posts especially created to accommodate the 407 sacked employees.

Some of them even obtained one-year arrears for fiscal year 2009-10 from a specially created federal fund to pay arrears to the newly reinstated employees.

They were supposed to draw more arrears for another two years under one of the conditions to reinstate them before the scam was unearthed.

The fraud was caught when the list of these ‘employees’ was sent to the Accountant General of Pakistan Revenue (AGPR) for their enrollment as regular public servants to draw monthly salaries.

An investigation into the case after the AGPR raised objections to the list, brought to light that the 121 named persons were neither present on record of either the finance or the education ministry.

The departmental inquiry held a deputy director responsible for the entire scam and recommended action against him but the influential official was only transferred from the directorate to another department.

Though all 121 individuals involved in cheating and causing a loss to the public exchequer were ultimately removed, no recoveries were made from them, nor did the official inquiry uncover who the actual culprit was, highlighting bad governance in official departments.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 12^th, 2010.