SPSC - news
 

[B][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][SIZE="5"][COLOR="Black"]SPSC-passed officers frustrated with police force[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/CENTER][/B]

KARACHI, March 1: The government plan to reform the police department through the induction of Sindh Public Service Commission-passed officers has hardly returned the desired results, as after more than seven years of the exercise, a large number of qualified officers appointed have resigned from their posts for better employment opportunities, while others who continue to serve the department complain of no progress in their careers during the past seven years.

Background interviews with those who qualified for the jobs after passing the SPSC exams in 2002 and who then quit the service, led to the conclusion that initially, the plan was widely appreciated and received a positive response from the highly qualified candidates. However, a large number of officers did not find the police service in line with their expectations and corruption, mismanagement and no reward for their services forced them to explore new and better employment opportunities.

“I hardly spent a few months with the city police,” said Abdul Samad Mehsud, a qualified engineer, who preferred to join the police force along with other friends after passing out from the NED University of Engineering and Technology.

“We passed all exams and met the medical requirements, but were disappointed when the training started and such feeling continued to grow till me and my friends got postings as assistant sub-inspectors.” After spending months as an ASI in the city police, Mehsud returned to his family business following his resignation from the service like three of his university batch-mates, who got themselves employed with different private companies one after the other in line with their academic qualifications.

Apart from those who resigned from the police force, many officers currently serving the department are not satisfied with their careers while some of them, after spending more than seven years in the department, have become a “part of the traditional police system”. There are even those who see their current occupation as a compulsion with no other opportunity available.

“I have been serving as an ASI since I joined the force in 2002,” said an officer, who was a qualified criminologist and joined the force after qualifying the SPSC exams.

“As an ASI, I draw less than Rs10,000 salary, with no medical, residential or other benefits. Initially, most of us joined the force with a passion and desired to reform the police. But with the passage of time, that spirit almost died in this working environment.” He said that a large number of his colleagues formally resigned with the passage of time from their posts, while there were also a significant number of officers who quit the department without intimating their high-ups and finally got fired from service following the issuance of notices warning them several times to resume their jobs.

The government in 2002 appointed 450 ASIs, who passed the SPSC exams and had at least a Bachelor’s degree as a basic academic qualification, in a move meant to overhaul the culture in the police depart ment and to induct young, educated officers into the department.

Though the initiative attracted a decent response from citizens of Karachi as fresh graduates, engineers and criminologists applied for the posts, it fell short of expectations as no turnaround was witnessed in the department, neither did it succeed in keeping such officers in their posts for a long period.

The police authorities agree that the service they are in does not offer a prosperous future and needs urgent attention from the high-ups to make it more attractive.

But at the same time they also believe that rules and regulations to progress in the profession were clear from the very first day and one should have considered those first when he or she had planned to join the force.

“We have currently more than 3,500 ASIs posted in Karachi,” said Waseem Ahmed, Capital City Police Officer (CCPO). “Promotion in the police depends on seniority and these 450 who were appointed through the SPSC exams were deemed junior to those who were serving the department with the same rank prior to their induction. So, the promotion in the department is awarded on first come, first served basis, and not on the channel of appointment or academic qualifications,” he said.

He added that there were precedents that officers appointed as ASIs excelled in their services and were promoted to the SP level, saying that the rules could not be changed for a particular group.

The CCPO’s argument, however, sounds unconvincing to SPSC officers, who believed that the high-ups never made any serious effort to reform the police department.

“Under this logic, how can you expect to attract intelligent, educated, honest and sincere members of society to join the police force?” said an officer, who has a Master’s degrees in linguistics and political science.

“Performance also plays a part in securing promotions, but you would have hardly heard about an SPSC officer elevated under this criteria.”
[url]http://epaper.dawn.com/ArticleText.aspx?article=02_03_2009_115_002[/url]

Cream lost in this quagmire
 

We have lost our brilliant minds in the dirty ocean of corrupt police department. Lot of competent candidates who were striving hard to attempt CSS and Combined Competitive exam had to join ASI post because of career uncertainty and in some cases to earn livelihood for their families. I know lot of genius guys who could qualify CSS and other gazetted post exams with flying colors if they had reasonable time. There were the candidates who were fully prepared but they could not attempt CSS in the reasonable time due to their trainings etc. By the passage of time this department snatched their skills and knowledge, they are now mourning on their destiny. They have lost their stamina and time has turned in their sorrowful situation. Few of these candidates have succeeded to qualify CSS and PCS but majority of them have failed to pass these exams because their duties have rusted their knowledge.

Some former ASIs who switched from this department: Syed Mukhtiyar Shah qualified CSS-2008 and luckily joined police group. Mr. Asif Memon joined NAB in BPS-16, Mr. Shaikh Joined ISI at AD position in 2004. Mr. Aftab Mahesar jioned Mehran University as a Lecturer, Mr. Memon joined WAPDA as AD, and some of the ASIs qualified SPSC Combined competitive and got selected as SOs and ADs. Some are still trying their best to switch from this department.

No doubt most of them were competent enough to excel for better future. But after the lapse of 7 years they are still ASIs save some exceptions (Who got promotion on some extra ordinary grounds). They are underpaid officers hardly getting Rs.8,300 per month. They can't afford their families based on this salary even one can't meet ones own pocket expenses with Rs. 8,300 specially on ASI rank where one has to offer at least tea to his colleagues, friends, and relatives.

Due to these financial hardships our brilliant minds have indulged in unfair means but still they can't afford their families to grow. Their selection has made no value addition to our system due to numerous counter factors rather they have become part of this corrupt institution.


What they have gained from ASI position:

Police Wardi with badges

What they have lost by joining ASI position:

Their rest
Their career
Their morals /their ethics / their eman



There are some ASIs who are satisfied with this job: Most of them are just Intermediate certificate holders. Keeping in view their qualification they are on better position.
But majority of this batch is highly demotivated, when ever we interact with them they make us feel that they are on disadvantageous position and term it their wrong decision to join police.


We feel their pain. We hope our institutions will pay heed to their genuine cries. They deserve handsome salary and proper promotion to remain motivated servants of this nation. We can’t excavate corruption from our system based on this brutal treatment.

We all know that one joins a profession to earn bread for his family as well as for achieving a prestige and honour among the society. But both these causes do not seem to be fulfilled by the police service. The salary being given to these young ASI's are comparable to those given to janitors/cleaners in private companies, yet they are expected to use their authority with honesty and to do justice to their duty.
I seriously believe that any reform in the police is impossible to be successful without remunerating the police force with what it deserves.

SPSC - news
 

[B][U][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][SIZE="4"]SPSC official found guilty of misconduct[/SIZE][/FONT][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]By Habib Khan Ghori[/B]


KARACHI, March 15: The Sindh High Court, in its enquiry report into allegations of malpractice committed in the selection of deputy district attorneys, has found the then controller of examinations of the Sindh Public Service Commission, Umer Zaur, guilty of misconduct, while it has absolved SPSC chairman Hassan Bhutto and member Abdul Ghafoor Junejo.
The report was prepared by Justice Faisal Arab, who was entrusted with the enquiry into the allegations against the SPSC chairman vide notification Feb 10, 2007. The report was placed before the Sindh Assembly on March 12 in response to a question asked by Nadeem Ahmed Bhutto.

In 2004, the law department of the Sindh government placed a requisition with the commission for selecting 23 persons for appointment to the post of deputy district attorney in BPS-17.

The candidates were required to first appear in written competitive examinations and the candidates qualifying in the said examinations were then to be called for viva voce.

Justice Arab had issued notices to the SPSC chairman M.H. Bhutto, member of the selection committee Junejo and ex-controller of examinations Zaur to state their respective positions in writing with regard to the selection of deputy district attor neys who were called for viva voce despite failing their written tests.

According to the procedure notified by the commission on Dec 7, 2005, in cases where the number of candidates is more than three for each post, a maximum of three candidates for each post are to be selected from amongst the candidates who have appeared in the written competitive examinations.

As such, against 23 posts, 69 candidates were required to be selected for viva voce from amongst the aspirants who scored the highest marks in the written test.

In response to an advertisement, which was placed in newspapers by the commission, 641 applications were received and after scrutiny 435 were found in order. These candidates were then called in for the written test on Dec 22, 2005.

Out of the 435 candidates, only 404 appeared for the written test. Retired Rear Admiral S.A. Baqar, who was one of the members of the commission, was assigned to act as the examiner of the written test.

He then submitted the list containing the coded numbers of answer sheets and the marks for all 404 candidates to the controller of examinations, who determined that a minimum of 47 marks were required to qualify for the viva voce. Sixty-nine candidates hence qualified for the oral test.

Mr Zaur then prepared a draft press release with the names of 70 candidates on Jan 28, 2006, without specifying the marks each candidate had secured, for the approval of the chairman. In the press release the following 25 candidates, who had scored less than 47 marks, were called for vi va voce (the number of marks they scored is indicated in brackets): Aziz-ur-Rehman Shaikh (10), Ms Farhat Naz (36), Iqbal Ahmad Solangi (25), Jamil Hyder (3), Mrs Naheed Khan Pathan (30), Naveed Akhtar Bhatti (28), Nazir Ahmad Memon (39), Raju Hanjan (27), Farrukh Raza Baig (41), Mohammad Kamil Khan (46), S.M. Zafar Ali Wahidi (17), Nadeem Ahmad (35), Saeed Ahmad Memon (33), Ms Shahana Parveen (35), Suresh Kumar Parmani (23), Arshad Mobeen Pathan (27), Atif Ilyas (46), Danish Zahir Syed (16), Syed Julye Zaidy (39) Khalid Mehmood Rajput (29), Mohammad Ayub Brohi (30), Nisar Ahmad Morio (40), Zahid Ali Chachar (15), Abdul Hafeez Jatoi (3) and Abdullah Malik (36). The 70 short-listed candidates were then interviewed by a three member committee, which chose 25 candidates for appointment. Of those, seven had scored less than 47 marks in the written test.

After this, the selection process was alleged to be tainted. Pursuant to the allegation, the records was scrutinised, and this scrutiny indicated that Mr Zaur had prepared his own list, and had awarded extra marks to 25 candidates.

In his first response, Mr Zaur alleged that the list with the exaggerated marks had been fabricated to involve him in false charges. However, the handwriting of the figures on the list tallied with another list admittedly prepared by Mr Zaur, one which related to assistant protocol officers.

When SPSC chairman Bhutto was asked whether he verified the selection of candidates mentioned in the draft press release with the examiner’s award list in order to check any accidental er ror or intentional manipulation, he answered in the negative and submitted that as chairman, he was continuously occupied with the work of interviewing candidates.

He said that it was because of this that in 1991, vide a Jan 19, 1991, notification issued by the then chairman M.A. Kazi, the controller of examinations was made exclusively responsible for tabulation and announcement of the results of the written test. Member Abdul Ghafoor Junejo also said selection of eligible candidates for viva voce was the exclusive responsibility of the controller. Report’s recommendations In his report, Justice Arab recommends that in order to prevent such scams in the future, the controller of examinations should prepare a list under his or her signature after receipt of result sheets from the examiner containing coded numbers and marks secured by all the candidates in the written test. The list should contain both coded and original roll numbers of each candidate selected for viva voce and the minimum qualifying marks.

The chairman or any other members of the commission should cross-check the list prepared by the controller with the examiner’s award list to avoid intentional manipulation or omissions in the selection of qualified candidates.

Copies of the examiner’s award list and the list of candidates qualified in the written test shall at all times be made available for inspection by any candidate for the sake of transparency, Justice Arab’s report adds.

[url]http://epaper.dawn.com/ArticleText.aspx?article=16_03_2009_113_006[/url]

[B][U][CENTER][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Police dept desperate to fill 500 ASI posts[/FONT][/SIZE][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]By S. Raza Hassan[/B]


KARACHI, March 29: Recruitment for assistant sub-inspectors in the Sindh police has not taken place for the last six years, though there are 500 vacancies and a greater need for ASIs, it has been learnt.
Only recently the Sindh police moved the Sindh Public Service Commission (SPSC) to initiate the process for hiring of ASIs.

As the process is time-consuming, if it is initiated soon enough, it will take at least a year or a year-and-a-half to complete, officials in the Sindh government said.

Sources in the Sindh police said 250 vacancies for ASIs existed in Karachi alone, with as many in the rest of the province.

Capital City Police Chief Waseem Ahmed told Dawn that Provincial Police Officer Babar Khattak had sent a formal request to the SPSC for recruiting 500 ASIs.

SPSC officials will look at their calendar and accordingly place advertisements in newspapers. Considering the rampant unemployment, for 250 seats around 5,000 applications are expected, observers said.

“Sorting out and conducting examinations will definitely consume well over a year,” a senior police officer said.

“For the last six years no hiring of ASIs has taken place in the province, which is adding to the existing dearth of manpower in the police force,” the city police chief commented.

Officials said the last recruitment for ASIs through the SPSC took place in 2002, when around 450 men were inducted into the force. Most of them were graduates and even postgraduates. Some eventually left the force after not finding the environment up to their expectations, an officer said.

The Police Order 2002 says: “The recruitment in the police other than ministerial and specialist cadres shall be in the ranks of constables, assistant sub-inspectors and assistant superintendents of police”.

It further says that selection for direct recruitment in the rank of assistant sub-inspectors shall be through the appropriate public service commission and shall not exceed 25 per cent of the total posts in that rank.

The police order also says that the recruitment in the rank of assistant superintendents of police shall be through the Federal Public Service Commission on an all-Pakistan basis.

Officials said that during the last six years a request was sent by a former PPO of Sindh to the SPSC for ASIs’ recruitment and advertisements were even placed in the press, but a controversy regarding the commission’s former chairman came up, which caused the entire process to be rolled back.

Plagued by the shortage of strength, the Karachi police will find the 250 ASIs a valuable addition to its force.

“The induction of fresh blood into the force on a regular basis is a must for better policing in the city,” the city police chief remarked.

However, some officials were of the opinion that hiring of ASIs could not be carried out strictly on merit in Sindh, where political considerations reign supreme.

Consuming considerable time, the recruitment of police constables was completed recently by the Karachi police. The lists of successful candidates were displayed at different police offices in the city.

This reporter tried to get the version of the SPSC to find out the status of the process by leaving a message, but the call was not returned by the SPSC secretary’s office.
[url]http://epaper.dawn.com/ArticleText.aspx?article=30_03_2009_113_008[/url]

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Mukhtiyarkar Test Announced
 

Mukhtiyarkar Test Announced By SPSC

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Letters To The Editor
 

[B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]SPSC’s selection process[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]

[B]Thursday 28 Jan, 2010[/B]

THIS is with reference to the letter by Waseem Nabi Soomro (Jan 21) criticising the selection process of the Sindh Public Service Commission. One of the points is that the result of written portion of combined competitive examination, 2008, has not been declared despite a lapse of eight months.

It may be clarified that such an examination has not been held in Sindh since 2003. Besides, 15 years’ relaxation in upper age limit by the government of Sindh also enabled an unprecedented number of more than 8,600 candidates to appear in the competitive examination in 2008.

Some candidates who had missed their optional subjects filed petitions in the Sindh High Court requesting holding of examinations in the leftout papers.

The petitions are now pending in the Supreme Court. Therefore, it is not possible to declare the result of the combined competitive examination till their disposal. The SPSC has simultaneously processed tests for lecturers and other posts which run in thousands.

It goes to the credit of the commission that it held the examination for the posts of mukhtiarkar to be conducted on Feb 24, 2010, which ironically could not be held previously despite publication of advertisements in various newspapers quite a number of times.

However, the posts of excise inspector were not assigned to the commission. The question of holding their tests does not arise.

It has wrongly been mentioned that the SPSC is minting money on advertisements because examination and interview fees collected from candidates are deposited directly into the account of the Sindh government and the commission has nothing to do with the fees so collected.

The commission has, within 19 months, recruited candidates for 2,222 posts in departments of health, education and literacy, works and services, livestock and fisheries, forest and wildlife, information and archives, environment and alternative energy, besides holding departmental examinations, as well as filling some posts of the SPSC itself.

[B]SYED AIJAZ HUSSAIN JAFRI
Secretary, Sindh Public Service Commission
Hyderabad.[/B]

[url]http://epaper.dawn.com/ArticleText.aspx?article=28_01_2010_006_009[/url]

Letters To The Editor
 

[B][CENTER][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]SPSC’s poor performance[/FONT][/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]

THE performance of the Sindh Public Service Commission has deteriorated considerably over the last two years.

It has failed to live up to the expectations of the poor but deserving candidates of the province, as far as the question of providing jobs to them on merit is concerned.

The inefficiency of the SPSC can be judged from the fact that more than 11 months have passed but it has not been able to declare results of the written portion of the PSC Combined Examination, 2008 conducted by it in April 2009.

The candidates have been making phone calls repeatedly to the office of the Sindh Public Service Commission at Hyderabad for knowing the reasons for the delay in the announcement of the results, but the authorities concerned have failed to satisfy them on one pretext or the other.

When I made a phone call a couple of days back for the purpose, I was told by the controller of examinations that since quite a large number of candidates have appeared in the examinations, the process of assessment of the papers was, therefore, still going on and the result would be announced as and when the same is finalised.

I further inquired as to how long candidates have to wait for their results.

The controller said that they would still have to wait for at least another two to three months. Never in the history of the SPSC has a delay of almost a year occurred.

[B]NAZIR AHMED SHAIKH Larkana[/B]
[url]http://epaper.dawn.com/ArticleText.aspx?article=30_03_2010_006_013[/url]

Date has extended for jobs
 

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