Depleted strength: Bureaucracy faces severe manpower shortage

As many as 82 top civil servants will retire by the end of 2011.

ISLAMABAD: An already understaffed bureaucracy will face a more entrenched manpower shortage when about 82 top bureaucrats retire by the end of next year, according to official figures.

While 33 bureaucrats have already retired in 2010, 15 more are slated to retire by the end of this year while another 34 will retire by the end of 2011.

Exacerbated by the government’s inability to fill the vacuum, only a hundred bureaucrats between BPS 19 to 22, compared to 284 total available posts, will be working in the civil services by the end of 2011, according to data prepared by the establishment division on October 15, 2010 and available with The Express Tribune.

The data also indicates that 26 positions in BPS 19, 83 in BPS 20, 17 in BPS 21 and 15 posts in BPS 22 are lying vacant, or are anticipated to be vacant, within the next three weeks.

Meanwhile, some 21 experienced top bureaucrats, dumped into an ineffective pool of officers on special duty (OSDs) for a variety of reasons, are waiting for postings. Some of these bureaucrats have been waiting for years.

Besides, five bureaucrats, not designated as OSDs, are waiting for postings, including Kamran Lashari, Syed Javid Ali, Javed Iqbal, Rana Altaf and Ramzan Javaid.

The bureaucrats in BPS 22 retiring by Jan 1, 2011 include the secretary privatisation division/commission Shahab Anwar Khawaja, secretary Zakat and Ushr division, chairman national tariff commission under commerce division Batool Qureshi, chairman Pakistan Science Foundation Fareed Khan, secretary information technology  Najeebullah , secretary planning and development division Ashraf Hayat, secretary communication division Sharif Ahmad, special secretary to prime minister Ghalib-ud-Din , secretary Wafaqi Fohtasib secretariat Tauqir Ahmad Faiq.

Meanwhile senior provisional police officers Tariq Saleem for Punjab and Sultan Salahuddin Babar Khattak for Sindh will complete their contract on Dec 16, 2010.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 7^th, 2010.