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Protesting officers seek probe into KP finance dept’s ‘mismanagement’

PESHAWAR: Provincial Management Service Association (PMSA), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has demanded a high-level inquiry into mismanagement of finance department, saying the province has been facing financial crises for the last one and half years and is unable to pay even salaries to employees.


The association, which represents more than 600 officers of provincial management service cadre, made the demand during a token protest outside the office of chief secretary on the lawns of the Civil Secretariat.


A statement issued here on Tuesday said that the gathering was held on the lawns of Civil Secretariat as a gesture of symbolic protest against the sluggish pace of progress on the pending issues being faced by PMS officers of the province.


It said that more than 200 officers attended the gathering.


Noman Wazir, the joint secretary of PMSA, addressed the gathering and said that Constitution ensured provincial autonomy. He said that posting of federal officers on schedule posts was against the Constitution and right of PMS officers. He said that a PMS officer, being son of the soil, should be posted as chief secretary of the province.


Roshan Meshdu, the president of the association, said that the gathering was meant to convey the unrest among PMS officers to the authorities concerned.


The participants of the gathering decided that all the PMS officers posted in the secretariat would go on four-month leave from next week, if no heed was paid to the genuine concerns of the cadre.


Mr Wazir told Dawn that the province was facing the worst financial crises of its history and every month there were fears about payment of salaries to employees. He wondered as to how the province’s economic outlook turned such a drastic turn.


He said that chief secretary, additional secretary and finance secretary, who were almost always posted from the federal bureaucracy, were responsible for the sad turn of events. “Will government probe those, who have pushed the province into the economic ruin,” he questioned.


Mr Wazir said that even after the passage of 18th Amendment, federal government employees were calling shots in the province and also controlling its financial management system. He said that province’s workforce stood about 320,000 personnel in 2012-13 that jumped up to about 750,000.


He said that over the past eight to nine years, the number of employees on province’s payroll increased so recklessly that now KP was finding itself unable to pay their salaries. He said that large numbers of posts were created and people were hired against those seats that destabilised economy of the province.


Mr Wazir said that the association had been agitating against posting of officers on deputation in the province for the past many years. However, he said that the issue was still unresolved. He said that those officers on deputation were occupying many positions in the departments other than their own. “Why they were hired if they were not needed in their own departments,” he questioned.


He said that the officers on deputation were placed in other departments for the only reason that they obeyed every order. He said when their colleagues were posted as officers on special duties, those officers on deputation were posted on their seats.


Mr Wazir said that they were also demanding appointment of PMS officer as chief secretary of the province. “The office of chief secretary is a provincial post and should have a provincial officer heading it,” he added.


Earlier on November 15, PMSA had announced to go on strike if their demands of repatriation of officers on deputation, changing of additional assistant commissioner (AAC) nomenclature to assistant commissioner and assurance of merit in transfers and postings were not met within seven days.


Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2023


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