Court decision falls on deaf ears within HDA

The suspect's mother confirmed his identity through the CCTV footage

HYDERABAD:

A court order against deputation and own pay scale (OPS) postings in the Sindh government appears to have fallen on deaf ears as far as the Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA) is concerned. As the Supreme Court's (SC) deadline of a fortnight for implementation drew to an end, neither had the 12 employees of up to BPS-19 grade been repatriated nor had the OPS staff reverted to their positions.

The SC Karachi registry bench, headed by Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk, had dismissed on January 5 the review petitions of the provincial government and around 179 public servants against its earlier order. The court upheld its decision of sending the staff back to their parent departments and quashing out-of-turn promotions.

"The deputations and OPS not only prevent merit-based postings but also allow outsiders to come and exploit the HDA for their personal gain," said Bashir Aiwan, a BPS-18 deputy director, who is also the president of the HDA Officers Welfare Association.

Seven officers belonging to the BPS-17 to BPS-19 grades and five others from up to BPS-16 are presently deputed in the HDA, an organisation responsible for town planning and development, housing, water supply and drainage. They include BPS-19 Agha Abdul Raheem, BPS-18 Sajjad Ahmed Memon and Shoaib Qureshi and BPS17 Muhammad Yaqoob Thebo, Imran Ali Khatyan, Salman Ali and Ghulam Mustafa Pitafi.

According to a letter submitted by HDA director-general Iqbal Memon to local government (LG) secretary Shazia Rizvi on December 18, 2014, these officers originally belong to the LG and the Karachi, Malir and Sehwan development authorities.

On December 8, 2014, the LG wrote to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, Sindh Building Control Authority, the Sindh Town Planning director and the Malir, Lyari, Hyderabad, Sehwan and Larkana development authorities, asking them to implement the court order within a week.

In response, the HDA DG only provided the details of the 12 deputed employees instead of relieving them. "The DG has the authority to resist the deputation-based postings but he did not relieve the outsiders even when the LG authorities told him to do so," said Aiwan, who sent a legal notice to the chief secretary, Rizvi and Memon last week for not complying with the court order.

He informed The Express Tribune that the notice would be followed by a contempt petition.

BPS-19 officer Raheem simultaneously holds three posts in separate departments: Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) managing director, Karachi West municipal administrator and Hyderabad Development Package (HDP) project director.

"The nepotism is such that the posts within Wasa and HDP, which are technically suited for an engineer, have been given to Raheem," complained an official, who sought to remain anonymous.

HDA Workers Action Committee leader Khalid Noor pointed out that Raheem had even given OPS posts to two other officers after the court order. "This flagrant breach of the order and lack of concern about employees' protests are fuelling unrest in the workforce, which is already facing non-payment of salaries, overstaffing and other issues."

According to HDA administration official Riazuddin Qazi, the posts that will become vacant after the repatriation can be permanently filled after a meeting of the departmental promotion committee. "So far, however, we have not heard of any meeting called for this purpose," he told The Express Tribune. Rizvi and Memon could not be reached for their comments.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st, 2015.