High-level meeting convened to weed out deadwood from bureaucracy

ISLAMABAD: The government has convened a meeting to consider the premature retirement of senior civil servants deemed to be ‘deadwood’.

According to an official letter issued by the Establishment Division, the meeting of the DRB under Civil Servants (Directory Retirement from Service) is scheduled to be held on April 19 and 20 “to consider the cases of BS-20 and above officers of Regularly Constituted Groups/Services who have completed 20 years of service”.

The DRB will be chaired by the Chairman Federal Public Service Commission and include Secretaries of the Establishment Division, Cabinet Division, Finance Division and Law and Justice Division.

The process of weeding out deadwood from the civil bureaucracy is being set in motion following the present government’s decision to prematurely retire those government servants who have completed 20 years of service but are not contributing in any meaningful way to the government service, are inefficient or corrupt.

Following changes introduced in the law and civil service rules, the ministries and divisions were asked to constitute the Retirement Boards and Retirement Committees as provided under the rules and start processing the cases as per the law on the basis of material evidence.

All the codal formalities have already been completed by the PTI government to carry out the process of weeding out deadwood from the civil bureaucracy. With the legal framework in place, those who have completed 20 years of service and are not useful for the government service will be prematurely retired for which instructions to all ministries, divisions and other government agencies were issued by the prime minister’s office.

Grounds for early retirement were notified and these include any officer who has secured average performance evaluation reports (PERs, formerly known as ACR) or adverse remarks have been recorded in three or more PERs from three different officers; has been twice recommended for supersession by the Central Selection Board (CSB), Departmental Selection Board (DSB) or Departmental Promotion Board (DPB) or twice not recommended for promotion by the High Powered Selection Board and such recommendations have been approved by the competent authority; has been found guilty of corruption or has entered into plea bargain or voluntary return with NAB or any other investigating agency; has been on more than one occasion placed in category “C” by the CSB, DSB or DPC under the Civil Servants Promotion (BS 18-21) Rules, 2019; has been involved in conduct unbecoming.

The Retirement Board and Retirement Committee were also notified. For premature retirement of BS 20 and above officers, the Directory of Retirement Board was constituted which is meeting next week.

For the premature retirement of BS 19 and below officials, the government has set up retirement committees. According to the policy, there will be various retirement committees in each division or department to recommend to the competent authority retirement from service in respect of civil servants in BS 19 and below.

The retirement committee for BS 17 to 19 officers will consist of a chairman, who will be an additional secretary or senior joint secretary of the division concerned; representatives of the Establishment Division, Finance Division, Law Division and head of the department or officer concerned.

The retirement committee for civil servants in BS 16 and below will consist of a chairperson, who will be senior joint secretary or joint secretary of the division concerned, representatives of the Establishment Division, Finance Division, Law Division, and head of the department/office concerned.

For the purpose of implementing this new scheme, all the federal ministries and divisions were directed to maintain a list of civil servants who have completed a specified length of service and fall in the category of those fulfilling the grounds for retirement.

These boards and committees are required to forward their recommendations to the competent authority. If the competent authority agrees with the recommendations for directory retirement of a civil servant, he shall issue a show cause notice to the civil servant concerned informing him of the grounds on which it is proposed to make the direction for directory retirement and shall provide him the opportunity of personal hearing if requested by the civil servant concerned.