ISLAMABAD - The government and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) have been keeping the responsibility of filling up apex level vacancies persisting in the autonomous watchdog tossing for the last three years or so and, eventually, compromising vigil on corporate sector. The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan Act of 1997 states that the Commission shall consist of minimum five or maximum seven commissioners including one of them appointed as chairman. On the other hand, the commission has been working with three and at times with two commissioners only since 2005 with variations. Even at present there are only three commissioners including the chairman in the SECP as against the minimum mandatory strength of five. Of late, sources said, the Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin had asked Chairman SECP Salman Sheikh to look for appropriate persons eligible for appointment as commissioners in the SECP. By the spirit of the law, the government is supposed to appoint the prerequisite number of commissioners in the SECP. However, following the footprints of the former regimes finance wizard Shaukat Aziz, incumbent finance minister has also left the higher-level recruitment in the SECP onto the chairman of the commission. According to the sources, the government was finding it difficult to appoint someone, as commissioner from the public sector was futile because it was highly technical job and generalist bureaucrats were not fit for it. Therefore, the govt shifts the responsibility to the SECP to find suitable candidates from the private sector. The sources were of the view that most of the skilled persons in private sector for these quasi-judicial posts were having allegiance with one business house or the other. Therefore, it was difficult to find a person fitting to the job specifications of the SECP commissioner, especially from the private sector, they added.