LAHORE - Punjab Chief Secretary Kamran Ali Afzal has once again requested the federal government to get him transferred from Punjab as he was not feeling comfortable with the PTI’s coalition government in Punjab, it has been learnt.
The chief secretary reportedly made this request during a meeting with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif who advised him to continue working on the present post till arrival of his successor. It was his third request in the last one and half months to withdraw his services from Punjab and get a new assignment in the federal govt. Also, during a meeting on dengue outbreak on Monday, the chief secretary is learnt to have told the officers that it was his last meeting as the chief secretary. Kamran Afzal also told the officers that he had requested for his transfer from Punjab.
Last month, the chief secretary had written a formal letter to the federal government expressing his inability to continue working on his current assignment citing personal reasons. The chief minister had then sent three names to the federal government for appointment as chief secretary. They included former SMBR Babar Hayat Tarar, P&D Board Chairman Abdullah Khan Sumbal and federal secretary Ahmad Nawaz Sukhera. But the federal government had turned down his earlier request citing ban on the new transfers and postings by the Election Commission in the wake of by-elections in Punjab. Kamran Afzal has now taken the plea that since the by-elections have been postponed, he could be transferred in the changed situation.
Though the Punjab Chief Minister Ch Parvez Elahi claims that he is having good working relationship with the incumbent chief secretary and wanted to retain him on the top slot; Kamran Afzal, on the other hand, is disinclined to work with the new chief executive reportedly after having lost his say in matters of postings and transfers of senior officers. Afzal also has at the back of his mind the statements of Ch Parvez Elahi against the chief secretary and the IGP made on Assembly floor on presentation of the provincial budget in June this year. Also, owing to the uneasy relationship with the chief minister, the chief secretary had earlier stayed away from the oath-taking ceremony of cabinet ministers.