ISLAMABAD: The prime minister has taken notice of ‘ghost employees’ in Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (Radio Pakistan) and sought a report from the information ministry. Sources told Daily Times that on revelation of hundreds of ghost employees in the 70 radio stations throughout the country, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has shown his resentment and ordered to probe the matter.
The PM House has issued instructions to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to prepare the lists of such staff that are getting pay from PBC regularly but are actually not working there. The PM House also asked the ministry to submit a report mentioning when, how and on whose orders they were inducted.
“In this connection, no excuse will be tolerated,” the orders from PM House mentioned. There are round about 10,000 employees in PBC and out of them some hundreds of ghost employees. Several of these ghost employees are doing two government jobs simultaneously, some of them are running their own businesses and several are performing their duties at private firms and NGOs.
It is pertinent to mention here that some powerful political families have many personal servants and growers working in their homes, who are getting salary from Radio Pakistan for many years. In 2002, PBC had created a new post of Resource Person just to gratify political personalities and top bureaucracy. The sources said that hundreds of people were recruited on political recommendations as Resource Persons during the last 14 years, but they were not assigned any task. These resource persons attend office according to their will and get paid for doing nothing from PBC on monthly basis.
The office holders of employees union told this reporter that ghost employees have committed dacoity on the rights of genuine workers. They said that the low paid employees have to visit their bosses again and again for the clearance of their meagre medical claims but they could not get their due rights, but on the other hand ghost employees as well as resource persons, who have support from political and other powerful quarters are taking heavy salary while staying at their homes or sitting at their own shops.
“We appeal to the Prime Minister to take immediate action on the matter to cleanse Radio Pakistan from these ghost staffers, which were appointed on a political basis,” union leaders said.