KARACHI: Appointment of wrong persons on sensitive posts has already damaged country badly but no lesson was learned ever in this regard, whether it was Port and Shipping or Power Generation and Distribution, most notorious and plunderer departments.

On November 16, federal government notified Syed Muhammad Tariq Huda, a BS-21 officer of Pakistan Customs Service presently posted as Chairman of Karachi Port Trust is assigned to look after charge of post of Secretary, Ministry of Maritime Affairs in addition to his own duties.    

Earlier, federal government granted approval to appointment of Mathar Niaz Rana, a BS-22 officer serving Secretary Ministry of Maritime Affairs who was due to retire in June 2023, as member Tariff and Finance National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) from Balochistan.

According to informed sources to issue formal notification of appointment as member Tariff and Finance NEPRA Balochistan, it is required that Mathar Niaz Rana should take earlier retirement from his current job as Secretary MoMA. Mathar Niaz Rana is officer of Pakistan Administrative Service and was currently serving as Secretary Ministry of Maritime Affairs. In pursuance of federal Cabinet approval, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif directed Cabinet Division that notification shall be issued when officer has tendered resignation from Civil Service, informed sources disclosed. According to analysts output of both, NEPRA and MoMA is already questionable. On one hand, process of training and appointment of Pakistani sailors has deteriorated and national organisation like PNSC is facing shortage of trained crew on their ships. To meet this critical situation it had enhanced retiring age limit of sailors from 60 years to 65 years and now it has gone up to 67 years. Inept policies of MoMA are depriving employment opportunities for our young sailors.

On other hand, lucrative post of NEPRA has lured MoMA official to run for huge sum of about Rs 825,000 per month plus fringe benefits, while technically he is unfit for this post because of lack of any experience in electrical field.

According to Aneel Mumtaz, a well-known analyst in power sector, Mathar Niaz Rana has been a member Board of Directors of PPIB in his career. In addition to his salary, he earned Rs 3.3 million within 13 months by attending just 27 meetings of OGDCL. And before joining NEPRA he should know that K-Electric is charging Rs 43 to Rs 92 per unit from its consumers while CPPA-G or other DISCOS are still producing at rate of Rs 10 per unit of electricity. Load shedding spread all over country, electricity-producing plants are deliberately closed or destroyed including Neelam-Jhelum and Bin Qasim Plant-3, he said.    

He stated that member NEPRA, Rafiq Shaikh is just a mechanical engineer who had never visited a grid station before posting but he is representing Sindh province in NEPRA is this not surprising?

Published in The Daily National Courier, November, 18 2022

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