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Thursday March 28, 2024

Ehtesab Commission replies to Ehtesab Commissioner!

By Akhtar Amin
March 30, 2018

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission explained on Thursday that the law relating to the commissioners’ role of overseeing without interfering in routine operational and administrative affairs was misinterpreted right from the outset by the commissioners and this led to the resignation of the former director general.

In response to a letter of Syeda Sarwat Jehan, Ehtesab Commissioner, to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister, it was revealed that the resignation of the former director general of the commission Lt. Gen (Retd) Muhammad Hamid Khan was also due to his serious differences with the Ehtesab commissioners on the interpretation of the Ehtesab Act, which resulted in interference in day-to-day operational matters in violation of the Act.

Syeda Sarwat Jehan, in her letter to PTI Chairman Imran Khan and Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, strongly protested what she thought was the illegal appointments and violation of the rules in the recruitment process by acting director general Brig (R) Mohammad Sajjad.

She wrote that the Ehtesab Commission was “on ventilator now and it needed complete surgery.” She said the commission should be purged of the black sheep and the vested interests would have to be stopped from entering the department.

The commissioner stated that the director general is a statutory position having different wings under his command to implement the statutory responsibilities vested in him under the Act with complete independence in its operational and administrative matters.

“The directorate general has always sought the legally required approvals from the commissioners and acted upon the same; however, interference in investigation, operational and administrative matters in the garb of advice beyond their legal parameters are not being accepted,” the KPEC stated in its reply.

“As far as HR Review is concerned, this activity was totally out of mandate of director IM&PC and the same was communicated to the commissioners. Despite this fact, all the available record was provided to him, on the basis of which several reviews were conducted in a span of one year. As per policy, the HR Review report was required to be submitted to director general but was instead submitted to the commissioners,” the Ehtesab Commission maintained. It said the directorate general shared observations with the commission regarding HR Review, which is based on presumptions, conjectures and surmises and thereafter commissioners kept the HR Review Report pending for a period of more than four months in their office.

The KPEC said that 95 percent of the HR Review report consisted of general observations, which should be taken as guidelines for future employment in KPEC.

“About observation on delayed cases, it was clarified that the figures of the delayed cases used to be communicated to the commissioners in accordance with the law, as it then was. However, the commission used to explore the reasons of the delay, which is an obvious phenomenon of white collar crime investigation,” it added.

“In this regard, any attempt to go into the details of inquiry/investigation had to be prevented by the director general as the law did not permit the commissioners to involve in investigation matters,” the commission explained.

About performance of the KPEC, it said that the author of the subject letter has portrayed negative opinion of three years performance of the Ehtesab Commission, which is ungrounded and devoid of any facts.

It said the performance of KPEC, when measured against the available human resources in comparison to the sister organisations, would give a true picture. It pointed out that human resource strength of KPEC is less than 10 percent of the human resource of the sister organisations i.e. NAB KP and Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) KP.

“The KPEC has only 15 officers/officials in the Investigation Wing as against 100 officers in regional NAB and almost similar number in ACE,” the commission explained.

About some of its major achievements, it said the KPEC instituted 29 references in Ehtesab Courts involving an embezzled amount of Rs3.7 billion and 113 accused persons. It said the total complaints received are 2740, of which 49 are under inquiry and 29 are being investigated, whereas 506 are under verification.

The KPEC claimed that the saving and recurring benefits as a result of the Ehtesab Commission’s work amount to Rs2607 million. It said this was achieved through good governance initiatives and interventions in ongoing and incomplete projects without filing any references in the courts.

In response to the allegations made by the Ehtesab Commissioner in the letter about appointment of the acting director general, it said the ex-director general Lt Gen (R) Muhammad Hamid Khan resigned on February 10, 2016 and resultantly a vacuum was created.

In order to fill this vacancy, it said the Chief Ehtesab Commissioner appointed the acting director general Brig (R) Muhammad Sajjad in pursuance of KP Ehtesab Commission (Amendment) Ordinance, 2016 read with KPEC Director General (Temporary) (Terms & Conditions of Service) Rules, 2016.

It said that the commissioners considered two senior directors i.e. Brig (R) Muhammad Sajjad and Brig (R) Tariq Hussain Khan of the Directorate General for appointment against the post of director general on temporary basis and interviewed both of them.

It said that Brig (R) Muhammad Sajjad was selected for this position and his appointment as acting director general was made by the Chief Ehtesab Commissioner through a notification issued on February 26, 2016.

It explained that appointment of permanent director general was to be carried out by the Search & Scrutiny Committee, which was totally independent in its functions but its work got delayed due to legislation to empower the Peshawar High Court administrative committee. However, the high court in its recent judgment asked the KP government to review the legislation as it was not the job of the court to recommend appointments in the KPEC.