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Assessment: Three foreign mission positions vacant

Officers eye seats in Geneva, Brussels, Washington.

Peer Muhammad June 26, 2015

The notification announcing Haque’s appointment, the CEO of Engro Corporation’s Elengy, was issued on May 11, according to which he was supposed to take over immediately. STOCK IMAGE

ISLAMABAD: A special selection board on Thursday conducted interview of as many as 10 candidates on the first day of the selection process for three vacant positions of trade officers/attachés in three different key foreign missions of Pakistan.

The special selection board is headed by Federal Minister for Commerce Khurram Dastgir federal secretaries commerce, foreign affairs and establishment are members of the board.

For these three positions, as many as 28 officers of BPS-20 belonging to various service groups have applied. On the first day, four candidates did not turn up for the interview process and the remaining 14 candidates will go through the interview process on Friday. The special committee will send its recommendations to the prime minister for final selection against these attractive positions.

These special BPS-20 posts are vacant in three key foreign missions based in Washington, Geneva and Brussels. Official sources said that influential political and bureaucratic lobbies are active to get their blued-eyed officers appointed against these vacancies.

These positions include deputy permanent representatives in the World Trade Organisation in Geneva, economic minister in the European Union headquarter in Brussels and trade minister in Pakistani Embassy in Washington, DC.

The approval for the appointment of these three officers have been given by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on urgent basis and constituted the special selection board for the purpose.

Earlier, Lahore University of Management Sciences (Lums) had been outsourced for the test and it had conducted the assessment on May 24, 2015, for the selection against the 41 vacant positions for trade officers of BPS 18, 19 and 20 in different foreign missions of Pakistan. Lums was expected to announce the results on June 19, but it was halted after some of the currently serving officers in these missions approached the judicial court against the assessment and consequently the court issued a stay order.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 26^th, 2015.

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