Finance ministry’s bottom-up approach to selection for prized posts

ISLAMABAD: A BS-20 officer, Syed Fawad Ali Shah, scored the highest marks in the written test conducted for the appointment of economic ministers at Pakistan’s four embassies but failed in the interview.

Another officer who barely passed the written exam got the highest marks in the interview and was allocated a prized post. None from the top three candidates was considered eligible and none from the bottom three who barely cleared the written was thought unqualified. In all cases, the discretion of the interview board mattered more than the competence displayed by the officers in the written exam.

Read more: BS-22 promotions: PM Imran Khan undermining selection board

The five-member interview board was composed of the minister of finance, secretary of finance, secretary of Economic Affairs Division, additional secretary for Establishment Division and additional secretary for foreign affairs. The News sent questions to the finance secretary, who is also the spokesperson of the ministry but he didn’t reply.

Economic ministers are the representatives of the Ministry of Finance in Pakistan’s missions abroad. There were four posts vacant in Washington, London, Beijing and Tokyo. For the first time, the selection process was initiated through a competitive exam conducted by the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi.

More than 50 officers of different services groups appeared in the exam and only 13 officers could qualify the written test as sixty percent marks were the passing criteria. Unlike the PMLN government which had introduced a criteria of 80 percent marks in the written and 20 percent in the interview, the PTI government changed it to 60 and 40 percent respectively.

Among the officers who cleared the exam, Syed Fawad Ali Shah was the topper. Next five in the line were Amir Mohiyuddin, Imran Munir, Karamatullah Khan Chaudhry, Abdul Wahab Soomro and Jawed Zia. None of them was found fit for the position of economic minister. Those at the bottom were given extra marks in the interview in order to meet the deficiency that occurred due to low score in the written test.

The result was greeted with skepticism as it was announced. Among the four qualified officers, three were at the bottom. None of them could score more than 60 in the written, which were the bare minimum passing marks. Dr. Samina Taslim Zehra, Wajihullah Kundi and Waseem Hayat Bajwa are those three officers. Samina, who was posted as project director of UNDP on deputation basis less than a month ago, has now been posted to Washington as economic minister, Wajihullah in London and Waseem in Tokyo. The fourth officer who got posted in Beijing was at the seventh position in the written test.

Earlier, the Federal Public Service Commission exercised such a discretion in interviews when it conducted tests of the non-gazetted employees for the positions of section officers in 2020. There were 478 candidates who appeared in the test. As many as 74 passed the written test but only 19 could qualify interviews and only two from the top 10 were picked. Topper of the written test was not among them. The News then spoke to an FPSC member to ask if there was any example where a topper in a written exam couldn’t make it in an interview test, his answer was in the negative. When further pressed that how come so many passed candidates failed in the interview, he didn’t know as he wasn’t part of the interview board.