Pemra accommodates 24 who even failed in written test
Abdul Sattar Khan
LAHORE: Out of the hundreds of politically motivated appointments, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) has accommodated those influential candidates, including the son of Justice (R) Abdul Hameed Dogar for the post of assistant general manager (AGM), whose names did not appeared in the original result sheet for qualifying the written examinations, The News investigations revealed.
Out of 60 such candidates for the post of AGM, who have issued appointment letters, the names of 24 candidates did not figure as successful candidates who passed written examination at the time of releasing original result sheet.
It is pertinent to mention here that the acting Chairman Pemra Dr Abdul Jabbar was heading the recruitment committee, which supervised the entire process of these recruitments.
Scrutiny of the documents, pertaining to these appointments, brought on surface a desperate attempt on the part of Pemra to facilitate such candidates by allocating them maximum possible marks under different accounts so as to reach the threshold of 90 marks despite the fact that could not clear the most important tier of appointment which is written test. This merit list contains six columns under different accounts, which includes written test (100 marks), personality and appearance (five marks), knowledge about the job (15 marks), communication skills (10 marks), additional qualification (10 marks) and work experience/regulatory experience (10 marks).
A successful candidate was required to obtain minimum 60 marks out of 100 in written test while no such threshold has been fixed for the marks under other heads.
Allocating maximum possible marks under these accounts to the favourites has conveniently allowed Pemra to place them at a comfortable situation at the cost of deserving candidates who had qualified the written examination.
Though this attempt, on the part of Pemra, apparently allowed an opportunity to both Pemra and the candidates,whom Pemra wanted to oblige justifying the appointments, yet the way this merit list has been prepared exposed many contradictions, leaving a sufficient room to doubt the entire process of recruitment.
Allocating maximum possible marks under all those accounts, which are many time less important than the written examination, itself speaks a great deal of favour, showered on these political motivated appointments.
The allocation of maximum possible marks on various accounts is not possible as it would give an impression as all those who have been allotted maximum marks under these accounts are “perfectly manufactured candidates”.
In this context, on account of personality/appearance, there are nine candidates who were given maximum 4.5 marks out of five. They include Sajjad Ahmed, Qasim Abbas, Maryam Jehangir Badar, Nazir Ahmed Nadeem, Aimen Ali, Hamayat Shah, Jehanzeb Khanzada, Nadir Khan and Junaid Ali Khan. Similarly, on account of ‘knowledge about the job’, there are five candidates, who were fortunate enough to get 14 marks out of 15; they include M Liaqat Shah, Syed Mudassar Masoomi, Miss Amna Mansoor, Waheed Aftab Sheikh and Nadir Khan. On account of ‘additional qualification’, there are two candidates who achieved 10 marks out of 10. They include Kahirur Rehman and Shafiqur Rehman. This is one such area which seems to have made Pemra’s job easy to accommodate few favourites as there is no mention of additional qualification required for such jobs, neither in Pemra rules nor it was mentioned at the time of advertising the jobs. On account of ‘communication skill’, there are four candidates who obtained 9 out of 10 marks, which also include a candidate who even achieved 9.5 marks. These include Syed Mudassar Masoomi, Maida Noor, Sajjad Ahmed and Nazir Ahmed Nadeem.
Pemra has not only committed blunders on account of showing those 24 candidates, who were failed to qualify the written test and whose names did not figure in the original result sheet, but the authority has also made similar mistakes on many other accounts. For instance amazingly, one such candidate Qasim Ahmed obtained 10 marks out of 5 marks on account of personality/appearance. Even if Qasim Ahmed obtained five out of five on this account, he could not manage to be included in the list of successful candidates. Pemra did not bother to even think of it as how a candidate can obtain 10 marks out of the total 5 marks. Pemra opted for this blunder is understandable as Qasim was required to obtain 90 marks to qualify for the job, but he obtained 60 marks in written test, 10 marks on account of knowledge about job, six on account of communication skills, four on account of experience which comes to 80 marks 10 short of the passing marks. If Pemra allowed him all the five marks out of five on account of personality/appearance even then Qasim was not able to stand among the successful candidates, so there was no option other than of allocating him 10 out of 5.
Another such blunder committed by Pemra in the process of justifying these appointments on merit was mentioning the name of a candidate–Rafiq Afridi–who surprisingly appeared simultaneously for both the AGM Technical and AGM non-Technical tests, making it more and more shocking as how a candidate can appear in two different examinations which were conducted at the same point of time. Similarly, the name of another candidate (Sirtaj Khan) appeared in the list twice with different passing marks.
Pemra authorities found another batch of nine candidates, who are already working with Pemra and appeared for the test, touching the height of perfection as all of them surprisingly got 10 out of 10 marks on account of work experience/regulatory experience. These perfectly matched candidates are M Liaqat Shah, Khairur Rehman, Mohammad Iqbal, Tamseel Haider, Mudassar Qayyum, Waqas Ahmed, Mohammad Khaliq, Sarfraz Ahmed Khan and Irfanullah.
More shocking is the fact that there are many other candidates, who were also working with Pemra and appeared in the test and having more experience than those who got 10 out marks, could not manage to obtain few marks out of 10, which could helped them to stand among the successful candidates. Even one such female candidate, Saima Nasir, who is working with Pemra for the last eight years, could not even managed to obtain single mark out of 10 marks on accounts of experience as Pemra did not bother to consider her experience even for a single day.
According to advertisement, the required qualification for the post of AGM was the relevant discipline like MBA/MSc/BSc Engineering in electronics, electrical, and Telecom. However, eight such candidates have been issued appointment letters whose qualification was not relevant with the post. They include Aurang Zeb (MA Pashto), Ameer Bakhsh Mehar MA (Sociology), Imran Ali MA (Sociology), Mohammad Iqbal (M A I.R), Saeed Iqbal M.Sc (Agri), Tamseel Haider (MA Sociology), Himayat Shah MA (Political Science) and Qasim Nawaz MA (IR).
Even one of the appointee, Hafiz Jamil Asghar, passed his BE Telecommunication on 29-12-2009 whereas the closing date for submission of application was 20-3-2009, and the date of issuance of degree is 18-6-2010. He produced the fake internship letter, signed by GM Technical, Pemra, Islamabad, showing therein that he is completing his internship in Islamabad whereas, at the same time and tenure, he was working in Regional Office, Pemra, Lahore, which shows the mala fides of Pemra during the course of appointment. Likewise, Ali Zeshan Haider Gondal, relative of former Minister of Food and Agriculture Nazar Mohammad Gondal, was on ex-Pakistan leave without pay and allowances from 11-6-2010 to 23-7-2010 whereas the interviews were carried out on June 15 to 23, 2010, which clearly shows as how a person, who was not present in Pakistan, have been qualified in the interview.
Similarly, on 13-8-2010, an office order No 4(40)/02-HR was issued regarding the appointment of assistant general manager wherein 48 candidates were shown successful. Subsequently, on the same office order No 4(40)/02-HR dated 13-8-2010, another list was issued regarding the appointment of assistant, general manager (AGM) wherein 49 candidates were shown to be successful with the new addition of Mohsin Hameed Dogar, the son of Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar as earlier the name of Dogar’s son was not mentioned in the list of 48 candidates.
The Executive Member, Pemra, Dr Abdul Jabbar, who is now-a-days officiating as acting chairman, Pemra, Dr Jabbar, in a written reply to The News queries claimed that “selection was made on the basis of written test marks (100 Nos) and the Interview Board assessment (50 marks) to evaluate the various attributes of the candidates. Each member has his own assessment and weighted average of all members reflects the final results. While compiling these marks of each member some typographic errors were made which were rectified later on.”
Source: The News
Date:5/2/2011
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