LWMC HR dept suspended over recruitment scandal

LAHORE : The mass recruitment scandal which hit Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) took a new turn after the Board of Directors (BoD) chairman suspended the entire HR department as well as constituted a fact-finding committee.

The News published the story of an alleged scandal of mass recruitment on June 27, 2020, on which, LWMC BoD Chairman Riaz Hameed took a stern action and suspended general manager HR and Admin, manager ER and assistant manager ER, and also banned their entry to the office premises till the findings of the committee.

Following this scandal, the fate of the ongoing jobs of over 4,500 sanitary workers was unclear as over 1,000 employees were recruited allegedly after getting bribes between Rs 50,000 to Rs 200,000 or favoritism.

In the letter dated June 27, 2020 addressed to the LWMC chief executive officer, the LWMC chairman said that as per the recommendations of LWMC management, BoD allowed to hire the services of the officials on daily/temporary contract basis, working for LWMC and hired through third party, to save the huge public exchequer.

“On the basis of various complaints against recruitment process, I am further directed to order a three-member fact finding committee comprising deputy chief executive officer (convener), chief internal auditor (member) and manager legal affairs (member). The committee shall probe into the allegations and submit its report to the office of the LWMC BoD chairman within three working days,” the letter stated.

It said meanwhile, in order to ensure transparency and impartiality, the officials concerned notably GM HR & Admin, Manager ER and Assistant Manager ER shall not discharge their duties till the outcome of fact finding-committee under the prevailing laws/rules/policies.

Earlier, the LWMC managing director had also constituted a scrutiny committee to resolve the issue. The letter, a copy of which was available with this scribe, stated that with reference to the advertisement against applications on various vacancies in LWMC projects of Lahore and Multan, a three-member scrutiny committee was constituted. The members were HR General Manager Farrukh Butt, Senior Manager Ops Murtaza Ch and Manager GIS Shoaib Dar

As per the letter, the committee will revisit the whole recruitment process and will certify whether the process was taken up as per rules, if not, will specify the areas where irregularity has been committed, the committee will go through all the provisions of the approval paper got from the LWMC CEO and will check whether all the conditions have been fulfilled if not followed it will be specified. The committee will also take into consideration that attendance of cut-off month of March 2020 has been duly considered for recruitment or there are violations of the policy. The committee will check whether changes brought into different lists have some mala fide or not and any other matter related to the recruitment will be taken up by the committee.

The management also constituted an inquiry committee headed by company’s chief financial officer to inquire into the allegations of bribe and favouritism. This committee will submit its report within the next seven days, said the general manager HR while talking with this scribe. He said the scrutiny committee and inquiry committee will work separately and was constituted to ensure transparency in the company. However, this inquiry committee will now not investigate the issue and the fact-finding committee formed by the LWMC chairman will prevail over it.

The LWMC chairman while talking with the scribe said that he took a quick action over the report of The News and for the first time in the history of LWMC, a general manager was suspended and barred from entering the office. He said the company is going through a very hard time and the BoD is doing all efforts to save public money. He said three main posts of general managers were also advertised and candidates were shortlisted. He said this included the post of GM Operations and GM Planning and very soon BoD will interview the shortlisted candidates. Over a question of involvement of operations staff in this scandal, he said the fact-finding committee will find the truth.