Daily Times

The federal government has appointed senior bureaucrat Major (retd) Azam Suleman as Secretary Interior Division.

Suleman has previously served in the same position in the Interior Division before he was transferred and posted as Chief Secretary Punjab. He has replaced Yousaf Naseem Khokhar who was transferred and posted as new Secretary Commerce.

The move comes as Azam Suleman was removed as Punjab Chief Secretary. He had assumed charge in November 2019 and served at the top position only for five months.

Azam Suleman has been changed amid the ongoing concerted campaign against COVID-19 pandemic he was leading from the front. His track record shows that he builds an excellent team work with his colleagues.

His colleagues say he is reputed to be a hard task master and no nonsense type of officer, an approach that ended his incumbency as the Punjab chief secretary. He is known as an effective officer and a man of strong likes and dislikes.

He rarely gets along well with politicians and would not allow them to mess around with his secretaries and field officers. He loathes political interference and pursues his own policies. But he was a favourite of former chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, who always posted him in the departments which he himself directly supervised because no minister or adviser felt comfortable with Azad Suleman.

On Thursday the federal government appointed Jawad Rafique Malik as Punjab’s new Chief Secretary in place of Maj (R) Azam Suleman reportedly on the request of Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar.

The name of Jawad Rafique was finalised in a meeting which took place between Prime Minister Imran Khan and Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar in Islamabad on Thursday afternoon.