Sindh’s information department under clutches of corrupt officers as five secys quit

KARACHI: The Sindh’s information and archives department, which is responsible for dealing with matters of print and electronic media and issue advertisements to newspapers, has been allegedly under the clutches of few corrupt officers since long compelling more than five senior bureaucrats to quit the post of secretary, it is learnt.

This is the only department which has been in the radar of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and former information and archives minister Sharjeel Inam Memon and several others were in jails for their alleged corruption of billions of rupees, sources informed.

Instead of learning from the past bad experiences, the information department has been on the same track of corrupt practices and commission mafia headed by its Director General Mansoor Ahmed Shaikh and Director (Advertisement) Zulfikar Ali Shah for the last two and a half years.

According to sources, Director (Advertisement) enjoys strong political backing of PPP leaders including Syed Khursheed Shah, Syed Nasir Hussain Shah and nowadays Saeed Ghani who is presently Sindh Minister for Labour, Information and Archives. Director Zulfikar Ali Shah is running the information department while showing himself as the front man of Saeed Ghani, sources added.

In year 2018, Director Zulfikar Ali Shah compelled senior bureaucrats (secretaries of BS-20 grade) to quit the post following his corrupt practices and hundreds of complaints from the owners of the newspapers.

The secretaries who got themselves transferred from the post of secretary included Altaf Bijarani, Saleem Raza Khuhro, Qazi Shahid Pervez, Abdul Rasheed Solangi and Ahmed Bux Narejo.

However, sources claimed that the tenure of secretary information and archives Imran Atta Soomro under the dynamic leadership of Advisor to Chief Minister on Information and Archives Barrister Murtaza Wahab remained the most transparent and based on merit as both the then advisor and secretary had introduced merit-based distribution of advertisements to newspapers.

Soon after the Sindh cabinet was reshuffled late in 2019, PPP leader Saeed Ghani replaced Barrister Murtaza Wahab as information minister and a senior officer of Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) namely Ahmed Bux Narejo was posted as secretary of the department.

However, the sources added that following corrupt practices of DG and Director, Mr Narejo got thirty days leave and another officer Abdul Rasheed Solangi was once again given additional charge of the department. Mr Solangi attended the office of secretary information only once while Director (Advertisement) Zulfikar Shah has been given full powers to do whatever he wants.

In December 2019, Director (Advertisement) Zulfikar Ali Shah, while using powers of the secretary, illegally transferred four Information Officers (BS-17) and asked them to report to Section Officer (BS-17) for further posting, sources said, adding that it is the prerogative of the secretary to assign and transfer BS-17 officer however director has no authority to do so.

Furthermore, Director (Advertisement) Zulfikar Ali Shah has been facing corruption charges of more than 400 million in advertisement released to newspapers without taking permission from the concerned courts. Interestingly, now the director has been putting all the blame on junior officers for this mess however the signing authority of these advertisement was only him.

When contacted, Secretary Information and Archives Abdul Rasheed Solangi told that he had asked Director to submit all the relevant record of more than Rs 400 million advertisement issued to newspapers by him. “I will write a letter to Chairman Enquiries and Anti Corruption to probe the matter and take those responsible to task”, the secretary added.

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