— Cabinet Division halts appointment of alleged ‘favoured’ individuals in four DISCOs’ boards
ISLAMABAD: As a major setback to the major parties of outgoing regime including PML-N, PPP and JUI-F, the Cabinet Division has returned a summary moved for appointment of their “blue-eyed” persons to the Board of Directors (BoDs) of four state-owned companies (DISCOs).
In a significant turn of events, the Cabinet Division, through an Office Memorandum dated August 17, 2023, has returned the summary after dissolution of the federal cabinet.
Earlier, the Board Nominations Committee of the Power Division, acting under the provisions of the SOEs (Governance & Operations) Act, 2023, had convened meetings on August 8th and 9th, 2023, to assess the qualifications of the proposed candidates.
“The Board Nominations Committee of Power Division constituted under section 10(1) of the SOEs (Governance & Operations) Act, 2023 in its meeting held on 08-08-2023 and 09-08-2023 scrutinized the CVs of the candidates on the basis of procedure adopted by it in terms of section 10(3) of the Act ibid, “ said documents available with Pakistan Today/Profit.
In terms of section 10(2) of the Act ibid, the Board Nominations Committee recommended the 11 Independent Directors on the Boards of Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (HESCO), Sukkur Electric Power Company (SEPCO), Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) and Peshawar Electric Power Company (PESCO), the documents added.
The candidates included Ghulam Mohiuddin Shah, Khalid Hussain, and Ghazanfar Ali were recommended for HESCO, and Qamar uz Zaman Rajpar, Khurram Abbas, and Munawar Nazir Abbasi for SEPCO.
Similarly, the names of Ahmed Aqeel, Mahmood Akhtar and Malik Mazhar Rasheed Khan were recommended for LESCO. Furthermore, Muhammad Saleem Khan and Tahir Javed Abbasi were put forth for appointment in the BoD of PESCO. The recommendations spanned a two-year tenure on the Boards of these four power distribution companies.
However, the Cabinet Division has chosen to return the summary and instructed the relevant authorities to take further necessary actions.
According to sources, this development is expected to have far-reaching implications for the former ruling political parties, including Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) as these 11 “blue-eyed” candidates were poised to occupy key positions in the BoDs of four state-owned power distribution companies.
It is pertinent to mention that this action of the cabinet division could have major political repercussions, especially for the PML-N, PPP, and JUI-F. These parties allegedly intensively pushed to have their preferred individuals included on the Boards of the aforementioned DISCOs, therefore, the denial was a serious setback to their efforts.
