Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The scam of appointment of hundreds of ghost employees in Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) has surfaced, and these ghost employees are not only backed by senior officers but also they are enjoying support of some corrupt officials of accounts and administration department of Radio Pakistan.

Sources told Daily Times that over 70 radio stations are operating all over the country under PBC wherein about 10,000 employees including technical, non technical staff, clerical staff, engineers, programmers, IT experts, artists, singers, announcers, news casters and others are working. News department of Radio Pakistan broadcasts news bulletin in 117 languages including regional, national and international languages daily. Current affairs programmes spanning 620 minutes are also being broad cast daily.

Sources told Daily Times that the officers working in radio stations and officers operating all over the country appointed their children and relatives on inflated salaries on papers only.

Over 1200 employees are receiving million of rupees on account of their perks and privileges every month but they have not come to the office to perform their duty even for a single day. These ghost employees are not only being backed by senior officers.

These dishonest officers receive their due share from these ghost employees and are inflicting heavy financial loss on national kitty every month.

Sources said that hundreds of people were appointed in Radio Pakistan during tenure of former DG Syed Imran Gardezi and finance ministry has neither accorded approval to these appointments nor has sanctioned the budget for payment of salaries to them so far. But Radio Pakistan is paying salaries to them regularly every month.

A good number of Resource Persons are also part of these ghost employees who come to office occasionally just to show their presence. They are also being paid hefty salaries. When contacted, director media Abdul Rauf told Daily Times nothing is in his knowledge about ghost employees. If such employees are working in Radio Pakistan then action should be taken against them.