ISLAMABAD: The president appointed retired Maj Gen Niaz Muhammad Khan Khattak as chairman of the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) on Monday.

He also appointed Liaqat Ali Shah Hamdani as Controller General of Accounts (CGA) and six members of the Federal Service Tribunal, and notifications in this regard were issued.

“President Mamnoon Hussain, on the advice of the prime minister, has approved appointment of Maj Gen (retd) Niaz Muhammad Khan Khattak as Chairman of the FPSC for the unexpired portion of his term as member,” a notification said.

Mr Khattak has replaced Malik Asif Hayat who resigned as chairman in August.

Mr Hayat had been appointed by the then president Asif Ali Zardari in January last year for a four-year term but had to leave the office after superannuation. He had been appointed on the completion of the tenure of former Supreme Court judge Rana Bhagwandas as the FPSC chairman in December 2012.

According to sources, the term of Mr Khattak, who served in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) before joining the FPSC as a member from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will expire next year.

The president, according to the notification, also appointed Akhlaq Ahmed Tarar and Mazhar Ali Khan, both retired BS-22 officers of the Secretariat Group, as members of the FPSC.

The number of FPSC members, according to the website of the commission, now is 10, including the chairman. Four members belong to Punjab, two each to Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each to Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan.

They include Batool Iqbal Qureshi, Abdul Wajid Rana, Muhammad Ayub Qazi, Amjad Nazir, Imtiaz Hussain Kazi, Muhammad Bakhsh Lehri and Rizwanul Haq Mehmood.

The FPSC is responsible for the recruitment and promotion of bureaucrats.

The notification was issued two days after the Establishment Division issued the recruitment policy for the federal services, autonomous bodies and corporations on the directives of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the wake of lifting of the ban on hiring for government jobs.

Under the policy, recruitment to posts in pay scale 16 and above shall continue to be made through the FPSC.

The commission, in its annual report for last year presented to the president, reportedly complained that the government had ignored some of its major ‘advices and recommendations’ to reform the recruitment system, improve the quality of human resources, ‘professionalise’ the civil service and the make the FPSC more effective through empowerment and autonomy.

It also reportedly sought amendments to the FPSC Ordinance, reforms in the promotion policy, improvement in the professional qualification for the competitive examination, introduction of screening test for the CSS candidates, improved mechanism for the exams for promotion of section officers and reforming the CSS exam for recruitment to the civil services. None of these recommendations have been approved by the government.

FST MEMBERS: According to a notification, the six new members of the Federal Service Tribunal (FST) are retired district and sessions judge Dr Riaz Mahmood, retired DSJ Syed Nasir Ali Shah, retired federal secretary Dr Nazir Saeed and another retired civil servant Syed Muhammad Hamid from Punjab; retired DSJ Salman Ansari from Sindh and Advocate Muhammad Javed Iqbal Kasi from Balochistan.

Published in Dawn, November 4th , 2014