Commercial counsellors abroad: Supreme Court takes note of 'contentious' appointments

The Supreme Court has taken notice of Prime Minister Secretariat backed 'contentious' appointments of commercial counsellors (three from private sector and one from public sector) over an anonymous application submitted by one of the victims, well-informed sources in Establishment Division told Business Recorder .
The sources said the Secretary Establishment Division and the Secretary Commerce have been directed to submit their reports on or before December 9, 2009 in the Supreme Court. Shahryar Talpur, son of Member National Assembly Nawab Ghani Talpur and nephew of Nawab Yusuf Talpur, Ayesha Saeed, daughter of Senator Gulshan Saeed and Nadia Rehman is the daughter of Khalid Rehman, a close friend of Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar are the three private sector appointees.
Interestingly, Nadia Rehman, whose duty station is said to be Prague, did not even appear in the test conducted by the Commerce Ministry. According to officials, the Commerce Ministry every year selects commercial counsellors in a transparent manner after a test is conducted by Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) for both private and public candidates.
This year the same practice was followed and the candidates were selected along with a waiting list on merit. However, later on four additional seats were created for Prague, Mauritius, Brussels and Chile. Three or four candidates, all from the private sector, were asked to appear for a test which was conducted by a subsidiary of the MoC and not by LUMS.
When media dug out the story, the process was shelved for time being, however, later it was not only revived but also completed. Out of these four vacancies, three were allegedly 'chosen' while one was selected as per procedure by LUMS. The government candidate, Fawad Ali Shah, who is from Customs Group, was not on the original list of successful candidates and the candidates who were on the original merit list were ignored.
The Commerce and Trade Group (C&T Group) is a specialised occupational service of the Government of Pakistan. The officers of this group are imparted specialised training in trade-related disciplines including export marketing, international economics, commercial and corporate law, export procedures, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and international and domestic trade framework, WTO laws and negotiations.
In order to effectively pursue the country's commercial and foreign trade interests, the government has established over 60 commercial offices in various financial capitals of the world. These offices are manned by grade 18, 19 and 20 officers. According to the Ministry of Commerce's notification number 3(9)/92-Admn III dated 16th January 2008, 50 percent of the total posts of Commercial Officers abroad are en-cadred to C&T Group.
However, only 17 of 60 plus posts are currently occupied by the officers of this group while the rest have been distributed among the officers belonging to other service groups and even ex- and non-cadre individuals, some with no relevant academic background or prior experience. C&T Group, sources said, in a recent meeting with Secretary Commerce Suleman Ghani, complained that they are being given discriminatory treatment.