Defiance of Supreme Court order: petroleum ministry retains two contract employees

Ministry of Petroleum (MoP) in defiance of Supreme Court orders is still retaining some contractual officials, Business Recorder has learnt. After the orders of Supreme Court, Ministry of Petroleum has sacked many contractual officials but two officials were still engaged by the ministry. They include Saeed Anwar and Mushtaq Qureshi.
Saeed Anwar was hired three years back as financial consultant and has been retained at the post even after clear direction of Supreme Court to sack those officials who were appointed on contract after they retired. Director General Oil (DG) Sabir Hussain has written to high ups of Ministry of Petroleum to sack Saeed Anwar in line with the orders of Supreme Court, sources said adding that despite DG Oil's advice, Saeed Anwar is still working at his post.
Sources maintained that financial consultant was being paid a salary of Rs 0.1 million per month from the training fund set up in DG Petroleum Concession (PC). "DG PC has the discretionary power to release money from the fund that was established with the objective of sending those officials abroad who deal with technical matters in oil and gas sector," sources said alleging that the fund was being misused through the exercise of discretionary powers of DG PC Sher Khan.
Mushtaq Qureshi has worked as private secretary (PS) to former special secretary ministry of petroleum and was appointed as steno in DG Oil office. He has also been retained by ministry of petroleum in defiance of Supreme Court orders. His salary is allegedly being paid by oil sector companies.
When contacted senior officials of ministry of petroleum said that these two officials were not being paid from the budget and therefore ministry of petroleum had not sacked them. In another case, one official in DG Oil office, Shaifiq-uddin, is getting two salaries - one from the Ministry of Petroleum and Rs 25000 per month from Pak Arab Refinery Limited (Parco) that is also a joint venture between UAE and government of Pakistan. "Former secretary petroleum Mahmood Saleem Mahmood had arranged two salaries for Shafiquddin", sources added.