173 ‘ghost’ employees suspended in Khyber Agency

LANDIKOTAL: The political administration has launched inquiry and stopped salaries of 173 ‘ghost’ government employees including Levies Force personnel, khassadars and health officials.

“We have launched an inquiry and stopped salaries of 173 ghost government employees,” Khyber Agency Political Agent Khalid Mehmood told The News.He said that they had introduced a secret monitoring system at various levels to find out the exact number of ghost employees in the government-owned departments.The officials said the inquiry revealed that 151 Khassadars and Levies Forces personnel had been missing from their duties since long.

The official said the Khassadars and Levies personnel, from sepoy to official ranks, were among the ghost employees who were regularly drawing salaries from the national exchequer.“In the first step, we have suspended the ghost employees and stopped their salaries,” he added.

He said they had also initiated an inquiry against 21 employees of the health and livestock departments who had been missing from their duties for the last several years.“It is confirmed that most of the ghost employees are not in Pakistan and doing jobs and businesses in the Gulf and European countries,” Khalid Mehmood said.

He added that assistant political agents of Landikotal, Jamrud and Bara had been assigned the task to complete official formalities without wasting time. He said they were also compiling data about missing employees in education and other departments.