The top brass of Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) is accused of misusing public funds and extending favours to the blue-eyed officials in the organisation. Well-informed sources told Business Recorder that these discrepancies have been pointed out by a team of Audit of Pakistan headed by Akhtar Majeed.
According to the audit, millions of rupees financial benefits have been given to incumbent Chairperson, Vadiyya S. Khalil, Dr.Joseph Wilson (Member),Ikram-ul-Haq Qureshi (Member), Mueen Batly (Member) and Shahzad Ansar(Member) under the guise of mobile charges, medical charges, leave fare salary, club subscription, security guards magnetisation, orderly all and HRA advance.
"Audit observed that management of CCP made millions of rupee payment to top brass over and above the package approved by the federal government", the sources added.
Auditors maintained that the payment of leave fare assistance, security charges, mobile phone charges, orderly allowance, club membership fee, provision of mobile set was over and above the CCP (salary, terms and conditions of Chairman and Members) Rule 2009 was irregular and unauthorised.
The sources said, audit has recommended that the responsibility should be fixed for continued payment of allowances to Members in violation of Rules, besides making recovery and stopping the irregular practice forthwith.
Audit has also mentioned several other irregularities in the CCP which was established to help ensure healthy competition between companies for the benefit of the economy.
Informed sources told Business Recorder that CCP has also appointed a number of officers in the CCP who have close relations with some top government officials and some of who do not have relevant qualification and experience. Unconfirmed reports suggest that a couple of officers have fake degrees.
The sources further stated that the files of some influential officers who got "attractive" jobs were intentionally misplaced so that the audit team could not find evidence against controversial appointments.
There are reports that after the audit team leaves the CCP office after 4 PM, some officials open their computers to find out what irregularities have been unearthed to enable them to prepare their replies.
The audit team has also pointed out massive violations in procurement and raised paras in the audit report.
CCP management has made at least six appointments of "favourite" candidates with the approval of Finance Ministry. Almost all the six new appointees have close relations with incumbent officials in the federal government. Likewise, four officers were given expeditious promotions. An officer who was transferred to Karachi obtained a stay order from High Court after which the management allegedly 'cut' a deal with him and promoted him last year and appointed his brother as well.
The CCP is facing court cases with respect to a purportedly discriminatory promotion policy with several clauses of the policy being overruled to facilitate favourite employees.
The sources revealed that CCP management has overruled the following clauses: (i) section 13 which gives the employee a chance to be heard; and (ii) Service Rules 2007 which says that a promotion committee would be constituted and which will send recommendations to the competent authority. The committee constituted comprises an individual who is on contract. "There is uproar in the CCP because of new appointments of relatives of high ranking government officials with existing employees ignored," the sources added.
The promotion policy is neither published in the official gazette nor approved by Secretary Finance who is the competent authority. CCP, she further contends, is denying her lawful right to promotion. The prevalent promotion policy only surfaced when two officials were promoted which was indicative of discrimination on part of the Chairperson CCP.
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