Governmet fails to fill key vacant posts in vital corporations

Riaz Malik
ISLAMABAD, April 23: The Government has been busy in utilizing all energies and resources to defend the premier, butit has sadly failed in doing any constructive work for the sustenance and development of even vital institutions such as OGDCL, PTA, OGRA and NEPRA etc.
Rather it resorted to place all the Regulatory Authorities under the administrative control of the relevant Ministries so that it can easily fiddle with key positions. Thanks to the court which came to the rescue of the institutions and granted stay order against such damaging move.
Key positions in different institutions have not been filled since long and make shift arrangement of choice is in place. In PTA, Finance Division is running without Director General and the Director since last four years. On technical side many positions are also vacant in PTA. In OGDCL, no Chief Executive could be appointed during the last about three years, in a quest to find a “suitable” candidate and this very vital institution is being run by a newly appointed second in line technical officer. In OGRA situation is even worse. While country
is facing serious energy crisis, the Government is least bothered in taking concrete measures except the lip service. Inthe Authority the positions of Member Oil and Member Gas have been vacant for almost one year and the Authority could not transact any business due to lack of quorum. Yet the Government inspite of having interviewed three very high profile short listed candidates sometime in January this year, could not notify appointment of the most suitable candidate, again waiting for a “suitable”.
The three candidates interviewed include Mr. Muhammad Arif who has over 30 years oil industry diversified experience in corporate affairs, joint ventures, commercial and legal. He is author of numerous articles and books in energy law of Pakistan and has keen interests in regulatory affairs. He has done MBA, LLM (Petroleum Law and Policy) and Post Graduate Diploma in Petroleum Economics and on the basis thereof is most suitable candidate for the position. Mr. Muhammad Yasin has been ranked as second which is also a suitable candidate since he has OGRA’s internal experience as Executive Director and had been found suitable for the position of Member Oil in the past. The third candidate Mr. Abdul Haseeb is an ex-SNGPL executive and has life long experience in natural gas sales and operations. He may also be able to perform as Member (Gas), if conflict of interest is considered to be a low priority since Chairperson of OGRA is also from SNGPL.
Post SCP verdict, since Government is feeling a sigh of relief on Panama-gate, it should immediately notify the most suitable candidate for the position of Member Gas, on merit, unlike the appointment of Dr. Abdullah Malik who has no oil industry experience and has been notified as Member (Oil) on 21st April 2017.