Dr Muhammad Fakhare Alam Irfan is the new KP chief secretary. The Nation reported on Sunday that the federal government gave him the post through an Establishment Division notification, moving him from the Power Division, where he was secretary. The posting starts at once and runs until further orders. Shahab Ali Shah, whom he succeeds, has been instructed to report to the Establishment Division without delay.
In Pakistan’s provincial system the chief secretary is the senior civil servant who coordinates the administrative departments. The Nation said this posting came on the same day the federal cabinet recommended emergency rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The officer taking the post
Dr Irfan belongs to the Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS), the cadre that fills the country’s most senior bureaucratic jobs, and he holds BS-22 rank. Basic Scale 22 is the top grade in the civil-service pay structure. Before the transfer he was heading the Power Division, the federal office that handles electricity-sector administration.
The Nation attributes the move to an Establishment Division notification issued on Sunday. The Establishment Division is the federal office that posts and transfers senior PAS officers. The order makes him KP chief secretary and keeps the arrangement in place until the government issues a further direction.
Officers called back
Shahab Ali Shah holds BS-21 rank, one step below the incoming officer. His instructions are to report to the Establishment Division at once and remain there until further orders.
The change reaches beyond one office. The Nation reported that the federal government had taken 15 senior administrators out of the province, Mr Shah among them.
A further 14 PAS officers who were working there have been taken off those duties and summoned to the Establishment Division. The account gives no names for those 14 officers. The figures match if Mr Shah sits inside the group of 15 and the 14 are the rest.
The cabinet’s emergency recommendation
The Nation presents the reshuffle against a security crisis. It said the federal cabinet on Sunday recommended imposing emergency rule in the province because security was worsening, and because of allegations that the provincial government was choosing to step away from the campaign against terrorism. The Nation reports those allegations as the cabinet’s grounds. In Pakistan, emergency rule is a constitutional arrangement under which the federal government can run a province more directly.
The Nation’s account stops at the recommendation and the allegations given as its basis. Readers following the cabinet’s recommendation can read Zaviya’s explainer on open questions about governor’s rule and the related report on the constitutional route in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The written order leaves the tenure open, worded as until further orders, and is silent on who will fill the posts left empty. For Dr Irfan, that open-ended line is the only term on record.
