ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) is using all the dirty tricks in their bags to destroy Pakistani sports and denying athletes to earn laurels at international stage. The PSB, which was established with a supreme purpose to facilitate federations in the best possible ways, is working against the spirit of sports. It has neither released a single penny fund to the affiliated 42 federations for the past one-year nor providing them with other facilities such as utilization of premises and establishing training camps.
The inside sources in the PSB have confirmed to this scribe that former Inter Provincial Coordination (IPC) secretary Fareed Ullah Khan had ordered the PSB Director General to stop funds and bar federations from using the PSB facilities till the fact-finding report against the federations. Now after the passage of more than one-year and replacement of Fareed, the federations were still being deprived of much-needed funds. “This year, Pakistani athletes have to participate in high-profile international competitions including Asian Games in Korea, Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, Junior Youth Games in China and other events, but due to non-availability of funds, their training camps are not being conducted and their future is at stake.” The PSB top brass is busy in plundering national wealth with both hands but they are not in a mood to release funds to those federations, which can guarantee the country laurels at international level. Not even a single training camp of any federation out of 42 affiliated units is being conducted for the last many years, but on the other hand, blue-eyed persons have been given lucrative promotions and out-of-way appointments have been made while a number of employees, who raised their voices against injustice, were given a real rough treatment by the PSB DG and his close aides.
The sources said that, Deputy Director General Chaudhry Salamat Ali, who was not eligible for the promotion on such a high-profile seat due to number of past incidents clearly written in his ACR, got promotion on the backing of PSB DG Syed Amir Hamza Gilani.
Salamat is famous for using very abusive language even against ladies and there was a case in which he abused a lady severely who filed a written complaint of this incident to secretary IPC and IPC Minister Syed Riaz Hussian Pirzada. The IPC secretary took notice of the incident and ordered the DG to conduct an inquiry against Salamat, but instead of obeying the orders, the DG told Salamat about the complaint, who called the lady in his office and used abusive language against her and also threatened her of dire consequences.
When this scribe contacted Salamat to seek his point of view in this regard, he used delaying tactics and after a gap of more than an hour, he finally called this scribe in his office where he gave contradictory statements. First of all, he totally ruled out any such incident then he changed his stance and said: “I just called the lady to know why she filed complaint against me. I didn't use any abusive language or hurled any remarks against her.”
“My ACR's were always excellent till 1999 to 2002 and after and before that period, I always managed to get excellent remarks in my ACR's. Those two DG had personal grudge against me therefore they did so.” On another query regarding giving promotion to director media on direct post, he replied: “At that time it was direct post, but now it is subject to promotion post.”
There were a lot of complaints against behavior of Salamat and at least two dozen staffers confirmed that he used very bad language against the lady and warned her of dire consequences. The inside sources confirmed that the entire episode was witnessed by the staffers, but no one could dare to stop him from doing so due to having backing of some influential in the government. The PSB trade union has filed a written complaint with IPC Minister, secretary and PSB DG and demanded justice for the poor lady.
When this scribe met with the lady to seek her point of view, she confirmed that Salamat used very foul language against her. “I stand by my statement and met with IPC secretary Ch Ejaz on Friday in this regard. The IPC secretary promised me to provide justice.” It seems there is no one who may check wrongdoings of the PSB DG and his blue-eyed persons. The sources revealed that a case had also been filed against the PSB DG in NAB while the DG is busy in preparing fake documents to befool NAB, just like he did to FIA. The time is ripe when Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif should take some time off from his otherwise very busy schedule and look into the sorry state of affairs of the PSB and ensure rule of law prevails in all departments and give exemplary punishments to the culprits so that no one may even dare to repeat the same in future. Any leniency on part of the PM can further aggravate the situation and allow tainted persons to continue with their self-styled policies.