LAHORE: The Board of Directors of National Transmission & Despatch Company (NTDC) has been accused of interfering in the day to day affairs of the transmission company which was in violation of its mandate, it emerged on Thursday.
Latest instance in this regard has been the issuance of order to assign additional charge for the post of general manager, Human Resource to a junior most official. It is alleged that order issued in this connection on Thursday was also in sheer violation of rules and regulations concerned.
The notification issued by the NTDC company secretary for assigning additional charge to Dr Naveed Ahmad Faraz, deputy manager (career management) was also against the clear direction of the federal government in this regard. It is unfortunate that the board has taken powers of running day to day affairs of the company in its hand, while flouting basic rules and regulations of running a public sector enterprise, observed sources.
As per the notification issued by the company secretary, the board in its 205th meeting held on September 22, 2021 against additional agenda item no 2, has unanimously resolved and approved to assign the look after charge for the post of GM (HR) to Dr Faraz, purely on temporary basis with immediate effect till further orders in addition to his own duties.
However, sources said, Dr Faraz, a grade 18 officer, has been given additional charge to the Grade 20 post. As per hierarchy, deputy director, director, director general and then general manager were in line according to seniority order.
It is simply incomprehensible how Naveed Ismail, Chairman (BoD) and other senior members of board approved such flawed order of interfering in the functioning of company and that too in another violation of giving additional charge to the junior most official.
It is further alleged that the beneficiary in this example has already under a cloud over earlier multi-step promotion against rules and regulation concerned.
Interestingly, last week, managing director, NTDC issued order for removing GM, HR abruptly. The former GM was asked to reach office and given the only option to resign otherwise, he would be fired from the post, leaving an unpleasant trail of bad governance in the company. Sources said that order about assigning additional charge to this vacant post could be issued by the MD, NTDC, as per rules concerned
Sources said the back-to-back decisions relating to Human Resource Department left a bad taste among the employees in general and amongst the senior management in particular, who were inadvertently superseded.
Lastly but not the least, sources emphasised that the NTDC board assumed powers of running certain day to day affairs when top management was not hired on permanent basis. Now, with the appointment of a professional MD after following due procedure, NTDC BoD should immediately relinquish power of managing relatively petty issues and only focus on its primary job of taking care of policy issues and reviewing progress of the company.
When contacted, an official of NTDC who asked not to be named said there was no violation of rules in assigning additional charge of a vacant post. The post of GM HR was a selection-based position not seniority based. The recruitment of the said post was already under process and was being expedited.
However, as a purely stop-gap arrangement, the said portfolio was assigned to an officer, having a foreign PhD and experience in career management.
Nonetheless, against specific queries regarding infringement in company’s affairs by the BoD in violation of its mandate and others were not responded to by the official. Naveed Ismail, Chairman (BoD) also did not deny any statement sent to him for comments.