ISLAMABAD: Syed Fawad Ali Shah, a BS-20 officer, scored the highest in the written examination conducted for the appointment of economic ministers in four embassies of Pakistan, but failed in the interview.
Another officer who barely passed the written test got the highest marks in the interview and was allotted a prized position. None of the top three candidates was considered qualified and none of the bottom three candidates who barely passed the written test was considered ineligible. In all cases, the discretion of the Interview Board will matter more than the ability displayed by the officials in the written test.
The five-member interview board consisted of the Finance Minister, the Finance Secretary, the Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, the Additional Secretary, Establishment Department and the Additional Secretary, External Affairs. The News sent questions to the finance secretary, who is also the ministry's spokesperson, but did not respond.
The Economic Minister is the representative of the Ministry of Finance in Pakistan's missions abroad. Four positions were vacant in Washington, London, Beijing and Tokyo. For the first time the selection process was initiated through a competitive examination conducted by the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi.
More than 50 officers from different service groups appeared in the exam and only 13 officers could clear the written test as sixty per cent marks was the passing criteria. Unlike the PMLN government, which had introduced the criteria of 80 per cent marks in writing and 20 per cent in interview, the PTI government changed it to 60 and 40 per cent respectively.
Syed Fawad Ali Shah was the topper among the officers who passed the examination. The next five in the row were Amir Mohiuddin, Imran Munir, Karamatullah Khan Chowdhury, Abdul Wahab Soomro and Javed Zia. None of them was found suitable for the post of Economic Minister. To make up for the shortfall caused by the low score in the written test, those at the bottom were given additional marks in the interview.
The announcement of the result was greeted with skepticism as well. Of the four qualified officers, three were at the bottom. None of them could get more than 60 marks in writing, which was the minimum passing marks. Dr. Samina Taslim Zahra, Wajihullah Kundi and Waseem Hayat Bajwa are the three officers. Samina, who was posted as UNDP's project director on deputation basis less than a month ago, is now posted as economic minister in Washington, Wajihullah in London and Wasim in Tokyo. The fourth officer posted in Beijing was seventh in the written test.
Earlier, the Federal Public Service Commission had exercised such discretion in interviews when it conducted tests of non-gazetted employees for the posts of section officers in 2020. 478 candidates had appeared in the exam. 74 passed the written test, but only 19 made it to the interview and only two were selected out of the top 10. The toppers of the written examination were not among them. The News then spoke to an FPSC member to ask if there was any instance where a topper in a written test could not make it to an interview test, his answer was in the negative. When further pressure was put on how so many qualified candidates failed in the interview, they did not know that they were not part of the interview board.