Non-functional SPSC causing manpower shortage in provincial departments: Ghani

Sindh Information and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani has appealed to the apex judiciary to start hearing the appeal of the Sindh government for making the Sindh Public Service Commission (SPSC) functional again in order to overcome the shortage of manpower in different provincial

departments.

He stated this on Monday as he was talking to media persons after inaugurating the 60thPostgraduate Diploma Course at the National Institute of Labour Administration Training (NILAT).

The information minister said it was their desire that apart from Karachi, institutions like the NILAT should also be established in other cities of Sindh but the shortage of manpower hampered such expansion plans envisioned by the Sindh government.

“It is not just the case of NILAT but also of other institutions, including those of the education department, where vacant positions of officers have been causing problems,” he said. Ghani maintained that it was lawful to carry out recruitment on grade 16 and senior positions of the provincial government through the SPSC.

He said the Sindh government at present was unable to conduct such recruitment drives as the SPSC was not functional due to judicial directives. “We have submitted our appeal to the apex judiciary in this regard but the hearing of the case has yet to be started,” he stated.

He appealed to the apex judiciary to commence the hearing of the Sindh government’s appeal. “They have to give judgment in accordance with the law. If they give judgment to abolish the public service commission, we will accept their verdict and even would demolish its building as we would then look for any other legal method for doing recruitment,” he said.

Ghani said the Sindh government was a pro-labour government and after the 18th Constitutional Amendment, it had enacted several laws for welfare of the labourers. “But still a lot of steps are required to taken in this regard,” he remarked.

He said the Sindh labour department required two to three years to complete the drive to issue the Benazir Mazdoor Cards (BMCs) to every labourer in the province. He added that assistance had been sought from the National Database and Registration Authority to prepare a proper database of over 600,000 labourers registered with the Sindh Employees’ Social Security Institution.

Ghani said that so far, 17,000 to 18,000 labourers of the province had been issued the BMCs.He added that data of 30 per cent of the applicants desirous to get the BMCs was

erroneous. “We don’t want to issue the BMCs in haste to undeserving labourers on the basis of the faulty database at the cost of rights of the bona fide labourers.”