IS IT TRANSPARENT?

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31.                                 IS  IT  TRANSPARENT?

The Supreme Court in its  judgment regarding the case of promotion to Grade 22 on April 28, 2010  decided this case  .  It  had  also directed the Government to revise the Seniority Roll, according to the newspaper reports. The Court  emphasised  on the principle  of Transparency in promotion cases. I was also very glad that the Superior Judiciary has taken notice of the various ills, which have crept into the country’s highest bureaucracy. As a retired civil servant as I see in retrospect there was a time when we saw ourselves as cream of the Nation. But now the bureaucracy has been turned into the dregs of the Nation so much so that I did not allow my four highly educated children to become bureaucrats so that what befell me should not befall them.

I joined the service on November 03, 1969 as a Section Officer after qualifying the Central Superior Services Competition.  I was promoted as a Deputy Secretary of the Federal Government on March 09, 1982. I remained on the same post for twenty-three years till I retired on June 12, 2005.

The case for my promotion to the next higher post matured after seventeen years of service i.e 1987.  The Promotion Board considered the cases of me and my batch mates for promotion in 1988. Since then till my retirement I was always superceded. Since the Board’s proceedings were secret, I understood by inference that I had been passed over. 

My service record is available with the Establishment Division. I was invariably told, because I was not allowed in that cell where calculations are carried out, that my quantification marks hovered around sixty-eight. General Musharraf introduced a new system of the best of the best. I had no chance under this system.

The rules regarding the promotion of officers have been laid in ESTACODE and the Promotion Policy.  The criterion includes the minimum quantification of marks of 70 based on the Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) . This quantification is done in the Establishment Division and is calculated over a period, which encompasses the total assessment reports obtained by a candidate during his entire service. This quantification is done

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in a secret cell in the Establishment Division in which no one is allowed to enter and is done by clerks.

 The Annual Confidential Reports are often based on the reporting officer’s likes or dislikes. In 1984, my ACR of that year was ‘good’. It was given by the Secretary General, Economic Affairs Division, the late Mr. Ejaz Ahmad Naik. The following year I was rated ‘ average’ by the SAME reporting officer despite the fact that the Chief, Resident Mission of the World Bank appreciated my work  (Copy enclosed).  Either the World Bank did not appraise me correctly or the reporting officer was wrong in his assessment. The letter from the World Bank was not considered for promotion.

However, the ACRs as a rule are not shown to the officers reported upon unlike the armed forces nor are they warned to improve their work. During my entire service of 35 years, I was NEVER warned to be careful in my work lest my ACR would be spoiled. 

However, I have seen my ACRs of 1988 onwards.My ACRs of this period were mostly ‘very good’.  In fact in one of my ACR, the reporting Officer appreciated my work ‘despite illness in my family ‘.  The question is either I was not consistent in my working or something is wrong with the appraisal and hence the system.    

Secondly, if the reporting officer is strict in assessing an officer, this will reflect on the quantification marks in the end. If, however, the reporting officer is lenient, in the end one’s marks will go up.

Thirdly, despite strict instructions to abide by the cut off date for submitting the ACRs, reporting officer resort to blackmail to keep the officer reporting upon to toe the line.

Fourthly , ‘outstanding ACRs’ carry eight marks , ‘very good’ seven marks , ‘good’ six marks and ‘average ‘five marks. Did it mean that all officers who were promoted managed to obtain ‘outstanding ACRs’ throughout their careers? Shortly before my retirement in 2005 , I attended two weekly courses in two successive years in Islamabad  All my fellow participants had been superceded .  But now they are in grade 21 . How did they managed to

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overcome this hurdle for promotion from Grade 19 to 20 and from Grade 20 to 21 in the presence of General Musharraf’s policy of ‘ best of the best’ .   

 Is it transparent ?

MAHFOOZ UR RAHMAN ISLAMABAD