MPAs find 132 veterinary doctors regularised without mandatory SPSC exam

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Sindh Assembly on Thursday detected that the services of some 132 veterinary doctors were regularised by the provincial livestock and fisheries department in 2018 without making them appear in the mandatory pre-job qualification examination conducted by the Sindh Public Service Commission (SPSC).

The PAC met at the committee room of the Sindh Assembly building to review audit paras about the provincial livestock and fisheries department from 2018 to 2021. PAC Chairman Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, who is also the Sindh president of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), chaired the meeting.

While reviewing an audit para, the PAC members came to know that 132 veterinary doctors had been employed by the livestock department on a contractual basis in 2015. The services of these veterinary doctors were later regularised in 2018 without any mandatory SPSC examination to verify their qualifications for government jobs.

The PAC was also briefed that no government job advertisement was published before the regularisation of the services of these veterinary doctors. So far a sum of Rs7.731 million had been spent on paying salaries to those veterinary care staff members, the committee was informed.

The director general (DG) of Audit Sindh objected to these regular appointments without any government job advertisement and recruitment examination conducted by the SPSC. The secretary and director general of the livestock and fisheries department told the meeting that the services of the veterinary staff had been regularised in the light of a law passed by the Sindh Assembly to this effect after getting approval from the competent authority. The two officials from the livestock department maintained that they had all the relevant record in this regard.

A committee member, Qasim Siraj Soomro of the ruling PPP, cited a verdict given by the Sindh High Court making the conduct of the SPSC’s recruitment examination compulsory for regularising the services of staffers hired on a contractual basis.

The PAC secretary, Muhammad Khan Rind, also cited a Supreme Court judgment that had made publication of government job advertisements compulsory in such matters. Upon inquiry by the PAC chairman, livestock officials said there were a total of 1,000 posts of veterinary doctors in the province and 850 of them were filled at present.

The PAC chairman gave 10 days to the livestock department to get duly verified the relevant record pertaining to the regularisation of the services of veterinary doctors from the DG Audit Sindh. The PAC will meet again after 10 days to reconsider the audit paras pertaining to the livestock department.