PML-N govt takes moral low-ground in offering package to retired 'lent officers'

IGP Bashir Ahmed Memon

IGP Memon declines the package and asks govt to revoke it

A Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) officer, belonging to interior Sindh, has won the hearts and minds of people in the country’s extreme north by turning down an attractive post-retirement package offered by the cash-strapped Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) government.

Ever since, the response of Bashir Ahmed Memon, Inspector General of Police (IGP) in AJK, is in circulation, the social media has been flooded with comments eulogizing his “exceptional” gesture in a society where majority of the government servants carries the notoriety of screwing benefits out of official kitty. 

At the same time, the PML-N led AJK government is also under scathing criticism for “doling out taxpayers’ money” in sheer disregard to its tall claims on fiscal and administrative reforms.

It was on March 28, when the AJK Services and General Administration Department (S&GAD) clandestinely issued a notification to supplement the facilities admissible to the chief secretaries under an earlier notification issued on June 15, 2006 when the region was reeling from the aftereffects of a devastating earthquake. 

Through the June 15, 2006 notification, which was renewed on June 4, 2011, the chief secretaries were offered the services of a cook and a driver for lifetime, after their retirement, from the AJK taxpayers’ money.

S&GAD notification

The March 28 notification not only added 800 free local phone calls, 800 units of electricity, 25 cubic hectometre (25million cubic metre) gas and 200 litres petrol per month to the post-retirement benefits of the chief secretaries but it went on to declare the admissibility of the same benefits to the IGPs as well, after their retirement.

The chief secretaries and IGPs are posted in AJK by the federal government under Karachi agreement of 1949 for a tenure that has rarely exceeded three years. They are commonly referred to as ‘lent officers.’

While the chief secretaries, already enjoying the services of cook and driver, were happy with the additional facilities, the response of IGP Memon to the notification not only baffled the government but it also plunged her to moral low ground, sources within the bureaucracy confided to this scribe.

 “Prima facie, these privileges would amount to putting additional burden on the exchequer of the state (AJK),” Memon maintained in a demi-official letter to Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider, a copy of which was available with this scribe.

 “The AJK IGPs belong to the Police Service of Pakistan (group) and their services are acquired from the federal government for a limited period, during which they enjoy all those perks and privileges admissible to this office… And I also draw an attractive salary and other benefits for my services here,” he added.

Continuing, Memon said holding the office of IGP and leading the police force in AJK with honor and dignity was in itself a great privilege and a matter of pride for him.

“I am thankful to the Almighty as well as the government and people of Azad Kashmir for the love and respect I enjoy here and does not consider myself worthy of these benefits, particularly when the AJK police is already facing acute shortage of manpower,” Mr Memon said, and called upon Mr Haider to revoke the notification from the date of issuance.

IGP Memon with this scribe

When contacted, Memon confirmed that he had asked the government to withdraw the notification in the wake of its poor fiscal health and pressing local needs.

He said he earnestly believed that there was no justification for the ‘lent officers’ to claim these benefits from the AJK exchequer, a place where they served for a short term.  

“To me, my constable serving in front of Indian guns along the Line of Control or the families of retired junior grade police personnel deserve this amount more than a retired IGP,” he said. 

Civil society was all praise for Memon.

“Hats off to Mr Memon. He has touched our hearts and taught a lesson to the local official machinery which always runs for more and more perks and privileges,” said Arisha Ali Khan, an MPhil student from Mirpur.

Defending the decision, AJK minister for finance Dr Najeeb Naqi maintained that since all other provinces, particularly Punjab, were offering same or more benefits to retired chief secretaries and IGPs, “we have just replicated them.”

When he was reminded that unlike Punjab AJK faced acute shortage of funds every month, even for payment of salaries and pension, he claimed that the additional funds for these benefits would also be provided by the central government.”

But there was hardly any voice in favour of the government.

 “The IGP’s response is a slap in the face of a government that has gone back on its promises to curtail unnecessary expenditures,” remarked Raja Mansoor, a civil society activist from Muzaffarabad.

 “In fact the IGP has exposed the duplicity of this deficit ridden government that flatters lent officers with generous offers in spite of carrying a begging bowl to seek funds from Islamabad,” he added.

It may be mentioned here that the AJK government has been facing an “accumulative shortfall” of about Rs 25 billion in its receipts and expenditures since 2009-10.

Every month, payment of salaries and pensions turns out be a thorn in the side of the government as State Bank of Pakistan stops clearance of its cheques, when it exceeds its overdraft limit of Rs 4.5 billion.

A ruling PML-N activist was among those who showered praise on Memon.

“By refusing to accept these perks, Mr Memon has tried his bit to inculcate sense among us. He will always be appreciated and remembered by us for his professionalism, humility and compassion,” said Sohail Iqbal Awan, a resident of Muzaffarabad.

Memon, who hails from Hala in Mitiari district, was posted as AJK IGP in March 2016.

Unlike most of his predecessors, he is thoroughly unpretentious and moves around without police escorts.

During the days of his posting in Sindh, he had faced three transfers in three years reportedly due to his straightforwardness.

Tariq Naqash 

PML-N workers despondent over "inaction" against the corrupt

Activists of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) appear to be despondent over what they allege inaction of their government against the elements who had “feathered their nests” during the previous regimes.

A vocal Haji Jamshed Mir speaks at a press conference

“Now those elements have started mocking us for the very reason and that is very painful,” said Haji Jamshed Mir, one of the founding workers of PML-N in district Neelum, at a press conference in Muzaffarabad on Sunday.

Mir, who was flanked by several other activists, had opened an office of PML-N in his Dudhniyal village in the upper belt of Neelum valley in July 2009, almost one and a half years before the party was formally launched by Mr Nawaz Sharif in AJK.

His press talk was the first open expression of dissatisfaction with the policies of PML-N that clinched sweeping victory in 2016 polls and is believed to be close to the hearts of many party workers across the state.

Mir said he was at a loss to understand why the PML-N government in AJK had not been dealing with the people who had “brazenly lined their pockets with public money, particularly during the past five years of PPP rule.”

According to him, maximum corruption had been done in the execution of development schemes and appointments in different departments, mainly education.

Funds were doled out to favorites with impunity against development schemes worked up by local government and rural development, public works and other development related departments, but hardly any of those projects existed on the ground, he alleged.

Similarly, appointments were made either on the basis of inducements or political affiliations through suspicious and factitious advertisement and recruitment process, he added.

He said the forests were the most precious wealth of Neelum valley as well as the main source of its natural beauty, but the same had been unashamedly denuded by the timber mafia in collusion with corrupt officials of the forests department.

“There is no let up to illegal felling and smuggling of trees, even now, because neither the mafia nor their unscrupulous patrons in the forests department were taken to task by our party’s government after coming to power more than eight months ago,” he lamented.

Mir claimed that all these “corrupt practices” were known to the accountability related institutions as well as the top PML-N leadership in AJK, but they seemed to be held hostage by “political expediencies.”

“Tell me, has a single corrupt officer been penalized by our government after coming to power in July last year,” he questioned and added: “In fact, their indolence in this regard is plunging us in utter despondency.”

Mir said he was ready to prove his point at any forum, without any fear or favour.

He admitted that Legislative Assembly speaker Shah Ghulam Qadir, who has returned from Neelum valley, had got initiated some mega schemes in a short span of time, which could play a pivotal role in socio-economic uplift of the area.

However, he maintained, Mr Qadir also appeared to be helpless in taking those elements to task who had played havoc with the resources of valley.

“He is Legislative Assembly Speaker and does not enjoy any executive authority. The powers to bring corrupt officials and their henchmen vest with the prime minister who is yet to swing into action in accordance with his pre-election avowals,” he said.

Mir said the PML-N workers across AJK were equally discontented with their government’s policy about appointments against the discretionary posts.

“It’s we, the workers, who faced mistreatment for their opposition to the corrupt practices of previous regime but now when our party is in power we are being made to feel as aliens,” he said.

 “If the government considers the bureaucrats suitable for discretionary posts as well, then the cabinet slots should also be given to them, instead of the MLAs,” he said.

This scribe failed to reach Mr Qadir for his comments on Mir’s press talk, because he was on a tour to his constituency. 

Tariq Naqash