Jobs in NAB: appeal to chairman

THE National Accountability Bureau has announced a bulk of jobs for various positions through an advertisement in different newspapers recently.

These positions include 103 vacancies of assistant directors (BPS-17) who will mainly be working as investigators to investigate white-collar crime and financial irregularities, committed in both the public and private sector.

The qualification required for the posts of assistant airectors as specified in the advertisement is MBA (Finance), MBA (Accounts), CA with second class or grade C, MCom, MSc in Economics, Statistics/Inter CA with four years of articleship after completing BCom/BBA or first class or grade B Bachelor’s degree along with LLB/LLM/Bar-at-Law.”

NAB is going to undertake this recruitment according to its own rules and regulations called ‘Terms and Conditions of Service’.

It may be mentioned here that the FPSC, an apex recruitment department, fixes a second class master’s degree in relevant subjects for the position of BPS-17, NAB’s qualification requirements, especially ‘MSc’ in economics, for the post of assistant director does not stand to any reason.

This is because most public universities offer master degrees in economics, called MA in Economics’, while private/elite universities’ degrees in this discipline are known as MSc in Economics’.

All public universities in Pakistan are accredited and their Master of Arts (in Economics) degree is recognised by the Higher Education Commission. Hence the Bureau’s criteria of ‘MSc’ tends to eliminate thousands of MA (in Economics) degree holders from the application process for these jobs. It further leads to discrimination between ‘What have you studied or done?” and ‘From which university have you done it?’

The same advertisement also includes senior positions, i.e. director-general, director, additional director and deputy director, and the qualification requirements for these positions are identical: Second class or grade C master’s degree in Business Administration, Commerce, Economics, Statistics, Defence and Strategic Studies, Law, Computer Science or a Chartered Accountant or BE/BSc (Civil, Electrical, Mechanical, Petroleum).

While one fails to fathom the relevance of a qualification in the engineering field with the field of white-collar crime investigation, one notices that it requires master’s degree irrespective of MA or MSc.Considering the hierarchy in the
government of Pakistan’s bureaucratic setup, the post of assistant director is fairly a junior position in officer category.

Therefore, requiring stricter qualification for a junior position does not have a plausible justification when it comes to the fact that requirements are much relaxed for senior posts.

Interestingly, the determiners of the qualification standards of these jobs — designed to perform the role of investigator of white-collar crime — forgot to consider two important subjects: Criminology and Sociology.

Given the awareness and prevention, two important components of NAB’s mandate to grapple with the menace of corruption through a holistic approach, subjects such as criminology and sociology deal with social deviance and provide a wider understanding of how people develop tendencies to perpetrate crime.

Since the last date to submit application for jobs is Dec 12, I would like to appeal to the NAB chairman to revisit the qualification requirements for the position of assistant director (BPS-17), relaxing to the minimum of second class master’s degree in Economics instead of MSc in Economics, including MBA in finance and accounting. This will not preclude business administration graduates to apply.

Furthermore, the NAB chairman should also consider the incorporation of subjects like sociology and criminology in all positions involving the role of the investigator.

MUHAMMAD SHABBIR
Karachi


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