LAHORE: Administrative crisis seems to have set in as the federal and Punjab governments have failed to post a regular chief secretary or decide to continue the stopgap arrangement by extending look-after charge of Abdullah Khan Sumbal.

Chief Secretary Kamran Ali Afzal did not apply for the extension in his “protest leave” period as his second leave period ended on Friday evening.

Sources in the chief secretary office told Dawn that Abdullah Sumbal returned the chief secretary’s vehicle and did not sign any official file since his look-after charge too ended on Friday evening. Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi has gone abroad for his private tour, allowing the administrative chaos to deepen in the province.

Sources say an unprecedented situation has cropped up in Punjab as the chief secretary having look-after charge completed his tenure and the incumbent chief secretary did not submit his joining report – leaving the top administration office vacant.

Sources say the PML-N-led federal government and PTI-PMLQ-led Punjab government could not resolve the matter in three weeks since Mr Afzal had gone on “protest leave”. They say Mr Afzal was continuously requesting the federal government to pull him out as he was not comfortable with the working of Chief Minister Parvez Elahi as he was asking for ‘out-of-merit’ transfers and postings of senior civil servants against his will.

Mr Afzal had conveyed that he was perturbed over transfers and postings not based on merit and security of tenure of officers across the province. In his letter to the federal government for transferring him out of Punjab, he had stated, “It is not possible for me to continue on my current assignment,” Mr Afzal had stated. Sources in the bureaucracy claim that the federal government is now asking Mr Afzal to rejoin as it wanted to keep a check on PTI’s plan of holding long march on Islamabad. PTI’s provincial minister Mian Mahmoodur Rasheed said party chairman Imran Khan could give a final call in the third week of this month as public was highly charged and wanted to topple the PDM’s “illegal imported government” in the centre.

Neither the Punjab government’s spokesman nor chief secretary Afzal responded to calls and WhatsApp messages.

A source in the chief minister’s office, however, confirmed that Mr Afzal did not want to stay in Punjab and would get his leave extended. But neither of the two situations could materialise as the situation has gone fluid in the sense that he neither applied for extension in leave nor has he joined his chief secretary office.

The PML-N’s federal government interviewed some bureaucrats, other than those nominated by the Punjab government in its panel, for the top administrative slot but did not finalise any candidate. The Punjab government, on the other hand, is sticking to demand of appointing a regular chief secretary from the panel.

The Punjab government’s panel of three officers is: cabinet secretary Ahmad Nawaz Sukhera, P&D Board chairman Abdullah Khan Sumbal and former SMBR Babar Hayat Tarar.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2022