PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has begun the process of sacking thousands of employees recruited in various departments under the last caretaker government.

The employees will be removed from their services through the enactment of a proposed law, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Employees (Removal from Service) Act, 2024, official sources told Dawn.

They said the draft bill had already been approved by the provincial cabinet.

The sources said that the government had started collecting data of those employees from all departments.

They said the government believed that the caretaker government recruited over 10,000 employees in different departments and their attached formations.

Officials insist such recruits total over 10,000 with majority appointed to police department

The sources said the finance department put the number of those employees at 9,662.

They said that the number of the recruited employees highlighted by the finance department in its figures was higher as the department had no data of the employees appointed to the autonomous bodies and attached formations during the caretaker government.

There are over 100 attached formations in the province, including universities, different authorities, and civic bodies.

The sources said the majority of those recruited employees were appointed to posts below BPS-16.

According to the initial data, the police department has more than 4,000 of them followed by the elementary and secondary education department (2,500), and local government department, public health engineering, irrigation, communication and works, and health departments (around 200 each).

The draft Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Employees (Removal from Service) Act, 2024, says it aims “to remove certain employees appointed by various departments of government through initial recruitment during the tenure of caretaker government.

Section 2 of the bill says, “It shall apply to all the employees, appointed by the various government departments through initial recruitment against regular posts during the tenure of caretaker government from 22-01-2023 to 29-02-2024.”

According to the proposed law, the employees were recruited in the period on court orders or in line with their judgements, on the recommendations of the public service commission, against the deceased son quota, and over cases where tests and interviews were conducted prior to the Election Commission’s Jan 22, 2023, notification regarding a ban on recruitment.

Section 3 of the bill is regarding the removal of the employees. It states, “All employees appointed through initial recruitment by various departments against the regular posts during the tenure of the caretaker government are hereby declared to be unlawfully appointed and void ab initio.”

For the collection of data of the recruited employees, the establishment department has directed all government departments to furnish details of the employees recruited during the tenure of the last caretaker government.

“The provincial cabinet in its meeting held on 24-10-2024 constituted a ministerial committee with the directions that all departments shall submit attested/verified data of appointments made during caretaker government and instructed that provision of incomplete or inaccurate data will lead to action against head of the departments,” reads an establishment department letter sent to the other departments.

It added that the ministerial committee had noticed that the departments concernedhad provided incomplete and inaccurate data about those employees.

“You are requested to submit attested and verified data of appointments made during caretaker government in the administrative departments, attached departments and autonomous bodies,” it said.

The information sought from departments include “nomenclature of posts and basic pay scale, the number of posts and appointments, method of recruitments, categories of appointments open merit, minority, deceased son and court orders, date of appointment, NOC obtained from ECP through the establishment department, NOC obtained from the ECP directly by the departments and number of appointments where test and interview conducted before January 22, 2023.”

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2024