KARACHI The Gwadar Port Authority (GPA) Board Committee has openly flouted the merit while demonstrating nepotism in selection of candidates in grade-19 and grade-20, TheNation learnt here on Thursday. The persons inducted under the pressure of influential individuals on important position were Director Legal and Director Accounts. Documents available with TheNation, showed that the GPA Board Committee which met on 21st of June 2008, selected Shafi Mohammad and Mumtaz Ali Baloch for the posts of BPS-19 and BPS-20 The committee comprised the then GPA Chairman Ehsan Saeed, Director General Ports and Shipping M Asad Qureshi, and Senior Joint Secretary SM Hassan Zaidi. The documents revealed that taking into consideration the candidates qualifications, experiences, professional acumen, personality traits and conduct/performance in the interview, this committee found Shafi Mohammed son of Saleh Mohammad best suited for the post of Director Accounts and accordingly recommend him to be selected by the GPA Board. Mumtaz Ali Baloch son of Ghulam Mohammad was selected as Director Legal BPS-20. Sources said that Mumtaz Baloch hardly has any knowledge of marine law which goes against the interests of GPA to tackle with the legal actions. Both of the directors are enjoying all government perks and privileges, despite the fact that the current GPA structure has not required such sort of induction and it could easily be run with the staff of 100 personnel. They said that the selection of the above mentioned directors was one sided as the then Director Operations and Director Admin were completely unaware of that selection, as both of these officers had to be part of the selection committee. Sources said that Director General Finance Ghulam Farooq had succeeded in the appointment of his close relatives, Mumtaz Ali Baloch and Shafi Mohammad, on these lucrative posts, with the connivance of the then Chairman Rear Admiral M Ehsan Saeed. Shafi Mohammad, appointed on the post of Director Accounts, holds the MBA degree (finance and marketing), while Director Legal Mumtaz Ali holds the degree of BE (industrial), MA in International Relations and BSc which ironically was not the requirement of the job for which he was selected. The other candidates who were shortlisted for such posts were Abdul Kahliq, Major (Retd) Mohammad Saleem Baloch against the posts of Director General Admin of BPS-20, while Abdul Kahliq secured 80 marks out of 100 for various categories but was not selected by the committee. The facilities these directors are availing include housing with all paraphernalia, which the other employees of the Port are denied, sources added. It is pertinent to mention here that according to the Concession Agreement singed between GPA and Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) the matters of port management, port operations, technical operations etc lie with PSA. The appointments of politically influential people on such key positions on the one hand financially ruined GPA while on the other it will invigorate the influence of these political individuals in GPA, sources added.