MUZAFFARABAD, June 16: Public office-holders in Azad Kashmir are incensed at what they believe arbitrary decisions of the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra) regarding recruitments and execution of development projects of three quake-ravaged towns, including the state capital.

Insiders told Dawn that Erra’s latest move to advertise around 47 vacant posts in Muzaffarabad City Development Project (MCDP) for recruitment was being viewed in Muzaffarabad as an attempt to sidestep the AJK government and had annoyed official and unofficial circles.

MLA Abdul Majid Khan, who the AJK Prime Minister Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan had appointed as his adviser on MCDP, was reported to have taken exception to the recent advertisement by Erra regarding recruitments in the MCDP, without even consulting the main stakeholder - the AJK government.

“Being your adviser on MCDP, I am daily inquired by a number of affected people about the role of our government in such appointments in particular and in reconstruction activities in general as well as the reasons behind delay in initiation of the (Muzaffarabad) city development project,” Mr Khan was said to have written to his prime minister.

“It is common perception that the AJK government is being ignored in dealing with the operation and launching of the MCDP,” he said.

Applications for the senior and non-gazetted positions in the MCDP had initially been invited by the AJK government in August last year through newspaper advertisements.

While a five-member selection committee, headed by the chief secretary, conducted interviews of the short-listed candidates for senior positions in November last year, applications for the junior posts were duly sorted out by the AJK planning and development department for test/interviews at an appropriate time.

In January this year, appointment of four engineers and one office manager against five positions in the project management unit of MCDP was notified by the AJK P&D department, and the notification mentioned the salaries against the names of appointees “as approved by Ecnec”.

However, sources said, Erra unilaterally revised the salaries of some of those officials only after three months without prior consultation with the AJK government.

As it was not enough, the state government was taken by surprise on seeing an advertisement in the June 8 issue of two newspapers on behalf of an Erra official, seeking fresh applications for the remaining 47 posts in the MCDP.

Interestingly, applications for recruitment in the city development projects of Bagh and Rawalakot were sought by the State Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (Serra) but sources said all the applications submitted in the agency’s office were recalled by Erra to make decision on them by itself.

They said the adviser had recommended that this matter should be taken up with Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani with the request to direct the federal authority to implement the reconstruction projects in consultation with the AJK government.

Interestingly, Erra re-advertised the five positions against which appointments were made by the AJK government early this year.

The advertisement for these posts, sources said, was given to the Rawalpindi edition of a newspaper which had comparatively little circulation in AJK, a week after the earlier advertisement for 47 posts.

When contacted by Dawn, director-general Serra Dr Asif Shah gave a terse reply: “Our organisation is no more involved in the management of MCDP.”