ISLAMABAD: The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) has declared appointment and regularization of 17 officers of Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) as illegal.
The AGP’s office in its audit report of period 2019-20 observed that the TDAP Board in its 3rd meeting held on December 2, 2004 approved regularization of services of contract employees in their various equivalent TDAP Pay Scales (TPS) after assessment of their capability through a committee set up especially for this purpose.
Accordingly, the Chief Executive of TDAP constituted a committee comprising Directors General of TDAP and Director (I&C) in March 2015 and consequent upon its recommendations, approved and implemented the regularization of contractual employees by issuing fresh offer letters of appointment as Assistant Managers.
Later on, post facto approval of creation of posts, regularization of contract employees, age relaxation and condonation of non-observance of quota in regularisation was sought from TDAP Board on December 1, 2015. However, upon detection of certain anomalies by the members of the TDAP Board, it was resolved to again thoroughly check the qualifications, performance and degrees of these employees and that their TPS/ BPS equivalence be done away with.
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Subsequently, the matter was again discussed in a TDAP Board meeting held on April 28, 2016, wherein, it was resolved that Establishment Division be approached for clarification in the matter with regard to regularization of contractual employees. Upon scrutiny of record by audit, “serious discrepancies” were found in the recruitment of following contractual employees: (i) Ms. AimaHidayat;(ii) Amin-ur-Rehman;(iii) Ashiq Rasool;(iv) Auranzeb Jahangir;(v) Faisal uz Zaman;(vi) Ms. FarzanaAbbasi;(vii) Ghulam Mustafa Shakir ;(viii) Jawad Ahsan Khawja ;(ix) KhurramJaved ;(x) Malik Ismail Haider ;(xi) Muhammad Amir Khan:(xii) Nasir Khan;(xiii) QaziSadiqArsalan; (xiv) Ms. Ravia Khalid;(xv) Zain ulAbdin ; (xvi) ZameerSoomro and ;(xvii) ZeeshanAnam.
Audit has held that not only recruitment of contractual employees was “irregular” but the regularization of these employees by issuing offer of appointment letters as Assistant Manager by the Chief Executive Officer without approval of TDAP Board was also “infructuous”.
The matter was taken up with the management and reported to the Ministry of Commerce in April 2020. It was replied that all codal formalities were fulfilled before appointment of contractual employees, however, the matter is sub judice and progress will be forwarded in due course.
Audit observed that the reply is not tenable as no justification for discrepancies in contractual appointments and their regularization without approval of the Board was provided in support of reply.
Audit has recommended TDAP to do away with all irregular appointments besides taking disciplinary action against the officers who were involved in such appointments and their infructuous regularization.
The AGP has also unearthed “massive discrepancies” in expenditure of TDAP including in Expos held in foreign countries.
According to the AGP, TDAP activities are traditional as discharged by the erstwhile Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) and the government’s vision of making TDPA a dedicated, effective ad empowered organization responsible and accountable for maximization of exports has not been realized.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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