former executive director of the Bank of Khyber and ex-CEO of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Board of Investment and Trade (KPBOIT) Mir Javed Hashmat and Bahadur Shah, the incumbent General Manager Hydel of Pedo.
Bahadur Shah also headed as managing director the erstwhile Sarhad Hydel Development Organisation (Shydo), which has been restructured as Pedo.
When contacted for his comments, Asad Umar denied his role in the selection of any official of the Pedo. “I have absolutely nothing to do with the appointment of the Pedo CEO,” he said.
“Ask anybody. I even did not phone any of the board members or any official for that matter in the province during the entire process of
the CEO’s selection,” he asserted.
“Yes, what I have done was to ask the province to expedite the process of appointment and provision of the manpower for the organization as it was badly affecting our power generation and development agenda in the province,” Asad Umar maintained.
About his links with Akbar Ayub, the PTI leader said, “I was CEO and he (Akbar) was a junior officer working somewhere in the organisation (Engro). And I hardly knew him”.
Nauman Wazir, a private member of the Pedo BoD, said no pressure was exerted for the CEO selection process from any quarter. The board interviewed 15 shortlisted candidates and selected three among them for the post, he added.
Sources at the Chief Minster Secretariat, meanwhile, said the bureaucracy was ignoring the directives of the chief minster to submit the summary for appointment of Engineer Khudadad Khan against one of the three vacant posts of general managers in the Pedo on deputation.
They said as rules for appointment of the general managers are yet to be framed by Pedo BoD and posts have not been properly advertised.
The Establishment Department is diligently ignoring the verbal directives of the chief minister to buy time at least till the next meeting of the board scheduled for February 17, they added.
The Pedo board is also likely to take decision on the appointment of the general managers of the organization in its forthcoming meeting to avert any probable standoff between the chief minister and bureaucracy in the matter.