ISLAMABAD - Office management group (OMG) in a meeting has expressed concern over the issuance of statutory regulatory order (SRO) in favour of district management group (DMG) by the incumbent government in violation of constitutional provisions, The Nation learnt on Saturday.
Sources said that around 200 OMG and secretariat group officers met here at Islamabad Club and decided to register the association with 900 members and fight for protection of their constitutional rights which were being snatched by the DMG. It is relevant to mention here that the DMG got an SRO issued which allocated the lion’s share in bureaucratic powers to them in the centre and provinces, which has sent ripples among other eleven occupational groups, especially the OMG and Police Service of Pakistan.
One of the officers during the meeting said that the government should know the importance of OMG in governance, as it was playing an active role for the development and prosperity of the country. The association has also expressed determination to fight against the controversial SRO and force the government to take it back immediately.
The establishment division issued the DMG-specific SRO recently and made the changes in the rules of the civil servants including secretariat group, police services of Pakistan and the provincial civil services. The PCS officers had declared the formation of DMG as unconstitutional and devoid of any legal support. Secretariat group had already said that very existence of the DMG/PAS was unconstitutional, so it was liable to be abolished and all officers of the DMG/PAS should be declared surplus.
On the other hand, the PCS officers in their press statement said that the DMG had manoeuvred the new SRO in order to save its skin in the case filed by PCS officers in the Supreme Court. The officers say that the SRO is a move to legitimise the creation of DMG/PAS, but the legal czars have made many mistakes while doing so. The SRO says that the rules of 1954 are being revived, but the preamble should contain the words ‘Article 246 of the Constitution 1973, and it shall be deemed to have been substituted since August 14, 1973,’ the PCS officers said. The officers of the police service of Pakistan say that never in the history, the DMG has ever announced the strength of its cadre posts, and they would never do so because it would expose them. The officers maintained that the posts of PSP, Foreign Service and all other occupational groups have been declared and officers are posted/promoted against those posts, but the DMG always hides its cadre posts only to get the maximum in the promotions. The officers of PSP term this SRO as apartheid in bureaucracy.