Making it hard for visitors, particularly those from media, to find the office of a government official. Sindh government has not bothered to install official nameplates, with complete designation outside the offices in Home Department.
The offices of the high ups of the department, including home secretary, special secretary, additional secretary (admin), additional secretary law enforcement (LE) and additional secretary judicial, deputy secretaries and eight section officers (SOs), prison department and judicial department are housed at the ground floor of New Sindh Secretariat Building.
The official sources at Home Department citing reasons for the negligence told Business Recorder on Saturday that the department had not installed nameplates of the officials due to security concerns. They said, the department had not issued official visiting cards to the officers for the same reason.
Another reason, the sources said, was that the cards had, reportedly, been misused in the past too. Further, they said, haphazard transfers and a permanent sense of insecurity in the wake of poor law and order situation were two other reasons for the absence of nameplates.
They said as a precaution the officers from Home Department also do not write their names on any order containing a punitive step to avoid backlash from the respondent. Being one of the major government departments, Home Department, is visited by hundreds of people from government and non-government institutions in a quest to get their problems resolved, but they can often be found wandering here and there to locate the office/officer they want to meet with, they said.
The sources said in the absence of identity-plate on the doorstep most of the visitors mistakenly knock or enter the wrong offices and cause disturbance to the officers or staffers working inside. Besides, the sources said the cleanliness situation in the department was also very poor and needed urgent attention of the authorities concerned.
When this reporter visited washroom of the department to confirm the complaint, he found a great mess in the face walls spitted with pan beats, two sinks filled with used teabags etc. Surprisingly, the washroom doors had no locks at all, and a nail was there to be used for locking the door.