ISLAMABAD: The bureaucratic red tape and unattractive perks have kept two premier insurance companies of the country — State Life Insurance Corporation Limited (SLICL) and National Insurance Corporation Limited (NICL) — without chairpersons for over two years, a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee was informed on Wednesday.

The PAC meeting was further informed that bureaucrats were enjoying acting charge of chairmen of SLICL and NICL for a couple of years.

Chief whip of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Amir Dogar said that an officer of the Commerce and Trade Group and additional secretary of the commerce ministry, Syed Rafeo Bashir Shah, had been heading NICL for the past couple of years and was the main hurdle in the appointment of a permanent chairman.

Mohammad Sohail Rajput, a special secretary of the commerce ministry, said that since 2017 the process to induct the chairman of NICL had been initiated four times and a candidate had been finalised once, but he refused to join the organisation on the ground of having been offered comparatively less salary as private insurance companies had been offering attractive packages for the same position.

Red tape, unattractive packages main reasons behind the crisis

Interestingly, Mr Rajput is also heading SLICL as its acting chairman.

He, however, told the PAC that a candidate, Shuaib Javed Hassan, had been appointed to the post and would join SLICL on March 17.

According to him, Mr Hassan is working in Hong Kong and has considerable experience in the insurance sector.

He said that since the government offered employment in MP-I package and within the salary range of Rs0.5-0.8 million and the private insurance companies offered much higher salaries, professionals having rich experience in the sector seldom accepted jobs in the state-owned companies.

PAC chairman Rana Tanveer Hussain wondered why the government did not appoint senior and efficient officers to these posts in the two insurance companies.

He said that a senior officer of the same organisation could perform better than the experienced one hired from the market.

Giving an example, he said that the finance minister had been inducted into the cabinet as an expert on finance, but he burdened the economy with excessive loans.

Mr Hussain also criticised the appointment of managing director of the Utility Stores Corporation (USC) from the private sector, saying the USC procured unhygienic and substandard edible oil.

The PAC deferred the scrutiny of the audit paras related to SLICL and NICL since the principal accounting officer, Mohammad Sualeh Ahmed Farouqui, was on leave due to Covid-19.

Munaza Hassan pointed out that NICL did not hand over its record to audit officials.

In reply to a question, NICL acting chairman Shah informed the PAC that since 2010 the then chairman and all members of the NICL board had been arrested in connection with a corruption case and the accounts could not be maintained.

He said the record had been maintained until 2017 and the rest would be finalised and handed over to the audit team by October this year.

The committee deferred the discussion on audit paras till next month.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2021