ISLAMABAD -  Promotions of over 500 senior officers of different services group and ex-cadres are in doldrums due to the prime minister’s busy schedule, The Nation has learnt reliably.

A three-day marathon meeting of the Central Selection Board (CSB) was held under the chair of Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) Chairman Naveed Akram Cheema in the mid of December last year. The CSB reviewed the promotion cases of officers of different services groups and ex-cadres and it had recommended over 500 cases for promotion to grade-20 and grade-21.

Sources told The Nation that the Establishment Division (ED) took 20 days in preparing the CSB meeting minutes due to the alleged negligence of ED Additional Secretary Maroof Afzal. The sources said that Afzal did not share CSB recommendations with relevant departments or divisions. He also alleged hid details of the CSB meeting from relevant officers of his own division.  They said that the four services groups including the Pakistan Administrative Group, the Police Service of Pakistan and the Secretariat Group were also working under ED.

The sources said that the ED sent the minutes of CSB meeting to PM’s Office in the first week of January for getting a formal approval. They said that it was for the first time that PM’s Office has put on hold the meeting minutes for more than three weeks without any plausible reason.  They said that one of the main reasons for delay was the PM’s busy schedule in the current month.

A senior official of ED told The Nation on the condition of anonymity that the PM Office has sought a report of 72 officers of different groups from the Intelligence Bureau. He said that a positive intelligence report helps in the promotion of any officer but the PM has discretionary powers to seek an intelligence report of any officer before giving a formal approval of promotion.  

He said that the promotions of hundred of officers have already affected due for the one-and-a-half year due a delay in the CSB meeting. He said that most of the recommended officers were about to retire.

Chief secretaries of all provinces, Member National Assembly Amir Haider Khan, Senator Saud Majeed, SAFRON Secretary Shahzad Arbab, Secretary Foreign Affairs Division Aizaz Chaudhary, EAD Secretary Tariq Bajwa and Capital Administration and Development Division Secretary Nargis Dhillon were members who had approved the CSB meeting minutes.