PESHAWAR: The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) has detected irregularities in appointment of more than 270 employees of Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, according to officials.

“We have solid evidence that 271 employees of different cadres have been recruited illegally. It has caused Rs210 million losses to the national exchequer,” a senior ACE official told Dawn.

He said that the ACE had requested the chief secretary to grant it permission to probe two senior officials in BPS-18 and BPS-21 for their involvement in the illegal appointments.

The ACE conducted an inquiry into the allegations against the university and concluded that 271 regular employees in different grades were appointed without any justification and sanctioned positions.

Officials said that the appointed individuals were ineligible as per advertisement and the committees constituted for scrutiny, test and interview failed to apply due diligence.

The inquiry report, a copy of which is available with Dawn, said that since the appointments were made in complete disregard of the laid down procedure and in violation of merit, the appointing authority and various committees constituted for the purpose of scrutiny, test and interview could not be pardoned.

ACE seeks chief secretary’s permission to probe senior officials

It said that the all the appointments of contract employees were made illegally and in violation of statutes. The advertisement was published on September 11, 2015 and the initial closing date of the advertisement was September 25, 2015, which was extended to October 5, 2015, it added.

“The required number of posts for each cadre has not been mentioned in the advertisement. Moreover, no figure is available to know that how many candidates applied for the positions,” said the report. It said that the list of applications received by closing date was not maintained in the office of the registrar. “It is astonishing to note that appointments under this advertisement continued till August, 2017,” it added.

The inquiry report also said that no dairy dispatch register was provided to testify as to how many candidates applied for various posts. The ACE team concluded that a handful of candidates were scrutinised and forwarded to the selection and promotion committee for interview, it added.

“It is astonishing to note that even the candidates declared eligible were found to be ineligible on various grounds,” it said. It added the record showed almost 90 per cent of the candidates finally selected were found ineligible with 13 of them overage.

The report said that three committees were constituted on June 1, 2016 to arrange written tests for the shortlisted/eligible candidates. The tests were conducted but no attendance list was available to ascertain as to how many candidates appeared in the tests, it added.

“Test results of 104 of the 271 selected candidates are not available in their individual files. It means that a considerable number of candidates were not present in the test,” it said. It added that the committees were, therefore, responsible to provide test results and attendance of all the candidates and to answer for not maintaining the attendance lists.

The report said that the appointing authority, the then vice-chancellor, failed to ask for the exact number of vacant posts at the time of advertisement. It said adding that subsequently, he approved the recommended candidates to be appointed against no posts and without asking for the transparency of process. “This shows strong connivance on part of the vice-chancellor,” it added.

The report said that the contract appointments were illegal since the recruitments were made without any advertisement, which deprived the talented people of the community to compete.

“Appointment in BPS-I to BPS-16 in a university is restricted to the geographical jurisdiction of the university under section 11(5)(f) of the Act. Territorial jurisdiction, of the university is also discussed in section 4 of the Act. The territorial jurisdiction has not been adhered to in some of the cases,” it said.

The report said that 65 demonstrators in BPS-16, 63 office assistants in BPS-16, 33 UDC in BPS-14, 76 key punch operators in BPS-11 18 laboratory assistants in BPS-7 were recruited despite the fact that no posts were available at the university.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2023