Pakistani province has dead employees still on rolls

Islamabad, Aug 2 (IANS) There are 338 dead employees on the rolls in Pakistan's Sindh province, leading a daily to wonder: "Governance? A troupe of performing parrots would do a better job".

An editorial in the News International Wednesday said that a month ago there was the national scandal of thousands of ghost schools spread across the country; and today "we have yet another example of the Sindh government being unable to manage much beyond the loose change in its pockets".

Calling it a "jaw-dropping admission of serial incompetence", the daily said that Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon has revealed there were 338 dead employees on the books and a "mere" 12,000 who were somehow receiving double the salary they were entitled to.

"There are 401,000 employees of the Sindh government but only 328,000 have Computerised National Identity Cards (CNIC). Of the other 73,000, there are 21,438 who have no records at all so one might wonder how it is they get paid; and the remainder have faulty identity cards," it said.

The editorial went on to say that there is a distinct sense that the "whole muddled business is a case of shutting the stable door long after the horses have galloped off up the road".

"Governance? A troupe of performing parrots would do a better job," it said.