The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is ready to take up the matter of regularisation of contract employees in Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) on any written complaint, an ECP official said.
The official confirmed that the Commission had not received any request from the BISP authorities for permission to regularise over 2,000 contractual employees which is a violation of ECP's directives to ban recruitment's in ministries, divisions, departments and institutions of the federal government or any department or institution of any provincial or local government including Health and Education Department.
The ECP directive did state that a request for exemption from the ban will be considered on case-to-case basis. The Commission received 25 references from federal and provincial governments for exemption from the ban on recruitment's but it has not given permission to anyone so far. It has also given seven days to Secretary Cabinet and provincial governments to explain their position regarding on-going recruitment's in the federal and provincial departments but no response has so far been received by the Commission with the due date passed, said an official.
Kanwar Dilshad, former Secretary Election Commission of Pakistan said regularisation of BISP employees during the ban period was technically pre-rigging. The Commission must summon Secretary Cabinet to explain the government's position. Spokesman of BISP told this correspondent that regularisation of BISP's existing employees is being confused with outright fresh recruitment's. He categorically denied any new recruitment in the BISP which would have been contrary to instructions issued by the ECP.
He further claimed that it is not a blanket regularisation process for every employee but is linked to many conditions as decided last year by the BISP Board. After promulgation of BISP Employees Service Regulations, it has become a legal necessity to complete the regularisation process of BISP's existing contractual employees.
"As far as the regularisation of BISP's existing employees who at present are serving on contract for many years is concerned, the process with respect to their regularisation had commenced last year in June when the BISP Board promulgated BISP Employees' Service Regulations, 2012," he said. Now, consent of the contractual employees is being sought so as to finalise the contemplated regularisation which can take a few more months to complete the process.