Commerce Minister Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan reportedly placed a moratorium on recruitment of lower staff (Naib Qasids and Farash) after completion of the process by the Ministry's bureaucracy, well informed sources told Business Recorder. The sources said, Ministry's officials conducted interviews of 1300 candidates for Naib Qasids and 41 candidates for regular Farash from18-22 and 25 May 2015.
The process was almost completed. However, while finalising the list of probable successful candidates, Commerce Minister's Director phoned the concerned Deputy Secretary and informed him that the Minister has directed to freeze the recruitment process till further orders. No official of the Ministry is ready to comment on this development on record but in private meetings they maintain that the Minister should have given a reason for freezing the recruitment process. When contacted, Commerce Minister confirmed that the recruitment process of Naib Qasids and Farash has been put on ice. "We are doing due diligence on recruitment of lower staff which will take some time," the Minister added.
Unconfirmed reports suggest Commerce Minister and Commerce Secretary have differences on this issue as the latter feels that the Minister should have honoured the bureaucrats' sense of judgement with regard to selection. Some officials maintain that as the Commerce Minister is a political person he wants most of the candidates to be from his own constituency or, at the very least, the successful candidates should be recommended by the ruling party. There is a perception that Commerce Minister's interaction with Ministry's bureaucracy is very frequent which gives rise to such speculations. When Commerce Minister was asked at a recent meeting about his differences with Secretary Commerce, he denied it, saying that his father and the Secretary's father were cabinet colleagues which is why the two have a very good working relationship.
Both the Commerce Minister and Commerce Secretary took a joint stand against the appointment of Dr Tauqeer Shah of the Model Town tragedy fame as ambassador to the World Trade Organisation (WTO); however, they did not succeed as Chief Minister Punjab wanted him to send him to Geneva at any cost.