Massive reshuffle of officers on the cards

The new Sindh cabinet is still far away, but the Sindh Secretariat has begun to prepare itself for making massive reshuffle of officers at various levels to suit the requirement of the new set-up. Sources said on Saturday that secretaries of food and agriculture, irrigation, communications and works, industries, education, health, forest and wildlife and finance were likely to be the first to go. Some changes in the services and general administration would follow, they added. They said that the transfers and posting in police departments were subject to day to day needs. “After a police official has exhausted his utility becomes redundant for the local administration,” they added. Referring to the changes in the police department, and a few likely to take place soon, they said that all administrative actions had the concurrence of the political party likely to rule the province. To a question, they said that two factors were being taken into consideration in preparing list for transfers and postings of secretaries - their reputation as corrupt officers, and public complaints about their inefficiency. They said that officers in the DMG group, belonging to Sindh, were waiting posting in the Federal government. “They will be called back.” There are many other officers that were made OSDs in Sindh and are waiting for posting orders, are being considered for postings at appropriate places. They said that the departments that had failed to perform in the past would have “fresh officers” to make them effective. These departments could not show progress of development projects, they utilised development funds and failed to submit accounts and continuously avoided addressing public complaints. “They had been asking for more funds on one pretext or the other without giving proper account of funds previously released to them.” Sources said that based upon the nature of complaint the anti-corruption department and the chief minister’s inquiry cell had been receiving for the past five years, a large number of officers were likely to be replaced. “They have bad reputation and record of financial mismanagement,” said the sources. They said that all those officers, who were either on contracts or on secondment, would have to make room for those who were waiting for postings. “Scores of officers without posting are simply drawing salaries and sitting idle. They are the victims of the whims of the former chief minister of Sindh,” the sources said.