Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Despite the passage of years and repeated directions from the Capital Administration and Development Division (CA&DD), the authorities in the Federal Directorate of Education have not compiled the seniority of senior officials in compliance with the fundamental recruitment rules.

According to the documents available with Daily Times, the seniority of the officials of various cadres serving in the FDE could not be issued by the authorities. Particularly, the authorities neglected to finalise the seniority of the Deputy Directors and Directors. This failure has caused many administrative issues in the directorate, sources said.

Under section 8(iv) of the service recruitment rules 1973, the secretary of the ministry is the competent authority to issue the seniority list of the officers working in the ministry’s attached/affiliated departments against Basic Pay Scale (BPS)-17 to BPS-19.

The documents reveal that the FDE authorities recently created a seniority list of the said cadre officers as per their own instead taking on board the secretary CADD who was legally authorised to give a sanction in this regard. The ministry was annoyed over this and directed the FDE authorities for mending the irregularity.

As per information available, there are three directors working against the Basic Pay Scale (BPS-19) namely Ghulam Hussain Sahoo, Asif Naizi and Muhammad Tsaj Bhatti.

The list of DDs in the administrative pattern concludes with Rana Nazeer, Muhammad Irfan, Gulzar Ahmed and Afzal Qadir.

The directors Niazi and Sahoo have been notified whereas as per sources, they have not been given any charge. An official in the FDE who wished not to be named, said that it was uncertainty among the directorate’s officials due to unnecessary delays in the issuance of seniority. “It may affect officials’ performance directly or indirectly,” he commented.

Sources in the CADD disclosed that a DD Major (Retd) Abdul Waheed, who holds additional charge of Director Admn in the directorate, has approached CADD for appearing in the Mid Career Management Course (MCMC) while attaching the old seniority list of the DDs.

The MCMC is the course that is mandatory in these days for a Director’s post in the public sector departments. Likewise, the Senior Management Course (SMC) is compulsory for serving against the post of DG in the public sector institutions. The process of finalising the nomination for MCMC, however, is pending in the ministry.

Moreover, the CADD and Establishment Division (ED), wrote to FDE’s DG Ayesha Farooq to provide the fresh seniority list on ‘highest priority’ basis.

The FDE oversees 422 educational institutions across the capital. Thousands of employees are serving in the entity. There are different patterns of employees such as teaching, information technology, administrations, technical sections.

As per service recruitment rules of 1973, each pattern’s employees have their separate line of promotions. Abdul Waheed, an official of the monitoring wing in the defunct ministry of education has been permanently absorbed in the FDE according to a presidential ordinance. However, as per rules, his seniority can’t be mixed in the other pattern of employees in the FDE. Moreover, under the said ordinance, Abdul Waheed was obliged to join the newly created ministry

In a judgment in 2012, the Federal Service Tribunal (FST) rejected the plea of Luqman DD physical education. He had sought his inclusion in the seniority of other DDs. The court stated he would include in his own discipline’s DD’s list.

Moreover, some officials in the schools and colleges had also approached the FST and other various courts to determine their seniority.

Joint Secretary CADD and Director General (DG) FDE, Ayesha Farooq, expressed ignorance about the reasons behind the delays. “I don’t know the reasons and can only tell you after checking them out,” she claimed.