ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Overseas Pakistan and Human Resource Division has sought cabinet approval to decide the stations of selected Community Welfare Attaches.
Sources said that the Ministry of OP&HUD has asked the federal cabinet to relax the amended policy guidelines with regard to deciding the posting stations of the selected candidates in foreign missions abroad.
The ministry claimed that the federal cabinet on July 27, 2019, amended policy guidelines pertaining to this selection process as well as for future selection processes However, the Establishment Division observed that the cabinet had given a one-time exemption despite no mentioning of it in the decision, sources added.
This is the third time when the Ministry of OP&HUD asked the cabinet for relaxation of the merit cum choice recruitment policy and wants to allocate stations as per its pure discretion which is a blatant violation of rules at this stage, sources said.
The ministry had completed this posting process based on the revised policy which the Prime Minister Office approved.
Earlier, the ministry had conducted the CWAs exam in 2019 as per the prevailing recruitment policy of 2016 for Pakistan Missions Abroad.
Later, the ministry moved a summary to the cabinet for relaxation of the prevailed policy to give it the power to allocate stations to candidates as per its choice by not only violating the policy but also the established process of competitive recruitment on merit-cum-choice basis.
The ministry gave the reasoning wildly that those who have qualified and came up to the merit want to enjoy paid holidays and nobody wants to serve at stations where most of the labor is concentrated which is an absurd logic if competitive recruitment of CSS are compared, sources claim.
Then the recruitment of CWA was held in November 2019 and this time the ministry revised the 2016 recruitment policy and conducted exams by the IBA university and interviews by the Special Selection Board appointed by the prime minister.
However, a few candidates went to court against the ministry for changing the rules just before the interview.
The Islamabad High Court had given the decision in favour of litigants; subsequently, the ministry posted out a few officers to different stations.
Currently, only 8 out of 24 stations have been filled so far by vehemently allocating stations and the federal government under section 7 of the Emigration Ordinance, 1979, will safeguard the interests of emigrants and promote overseas employment, appoints a person to be a Labor Attaché /CWAs.
Document state that the ministry also asked the cabinet to give approval of posting of seven candidates and in case if any of the top seven-candidate does not convey his/her acceptance to the offer of appointment within six working days of the receipt of the offer, OP&HRD may issue the officer to appointment to the next candidate on the merit list.
It is important to mention here that the candidates during the last two postings of CWAs got relief from court whereas the Ministry of Commerce has completed the Commercial Welfare Attache postings in a transparent manner.
