On March 8, 2015 an advertisement appeared in newspapers for new recruitments for 1568 vacant posts in different cadres (BPS 1 to 16) & 94 officers (ie grade 17, 18 and 19). A private recruiting company - RESOURCE Access - was given the task of conducting a test for inductions from grade 1-16 & 17 to 19th, a defaulter from Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan.
The complainant challenged the "dubious recruitment process" before Islamabad High Court through Writ Petition No. 2610/2015 which was disposed off with a direction. In May 2017 Iesco announced 1124 jobs through advertisements in daily news papers, and allowed NTS to collect applications along with a process fee of up to Rs 500/- from candidates.
The petitioner claims that a large number of applications were simply binned without any test and the reason given was screening of applicants with mutual consent of Iesco & NTS management. He further claimed that inquiry / investigation with NAB is still pending and no outcome/progress has been conveyed by NAB except changing the inquiry officer (inquiry No.58/2015) in which NAB authorities tried to save and protect the accused instead of taking action against them.
NAB authorities acted against their mandate and Additional Director NAB, Tariq Butt played a key role in changing the inquiry officer overnight, instead of implementing the recommendation of Ahmad Khan - the then inquiry officer - and replacing him with Miss Farzana to achieve their targets. Before start of inquiry / investigation by NAB, a high profile inquiry committee was constituted by Ministry of Water & Power comprising Altaf Zia Qureshi GM (M&S) PEPCO, Muhammad Suleyman Warriach and Saghir Ahmed HRD PEPCO.
On the recommendations of the committee, services of the then CEO Iesco Muhammad Yousuf Awan were terminated on December 9, 2015, and 87 new appointees were removed after expiry of their contract period; whereas the remaining recommendations ie taking disciplinary actions against culprits', facilitators' recovery of Rs 11 million, sending cases to FIA and NAB were ignored with the consent of IESCO accused officers and CBA Union, (a beneficiary).
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017