Recruitment in 9 dists stopped

The government has suspended the recruitment of the class-III and class-IV employees for health department in nine districts for alleged political influence, corruption and irregularities in the process.
The districts are Gopalganj, Rangpur, Gaibandha, Shariatpur, Brahmanbaria, Jessore, Panchagar, Pirojpur and Jhenidah.
Health and Family Welfare Minister AFM Ruhal Haque told The Daily Star yesterday, “After receiving complaints from local level, we halted the procedure for few days. We are now reviewing the process to overcome the irregularities and mismanagement.”
The districts where recruitment has already been completed will not come under the review. Rather it is only for the districts which faced problems, added the minister.
He also mentioned that the government formed district level investigation committees to scrutinise the issue.
The government has moved to recruit 4,217 class-III and class-IV employees for 79 health complexes, medical college hospitals and civil surgeon offices in all 64 districts, said Dr Md Abul Hasnat, director (administration) of Directorate General of Health Services.
A total of 1,074 employees will be recruited in class-III and 3,143 in class-IV categories.
DGHS Director General Dr Shah Monir yesterday said, “We will take the decision on the recruitment process after the health minister returns home from a trip to the US.”
Recruitment is a continuous process and some of them were suspended where the deprived and failed candidates tried to create chaos in the civil surgeons' offices, said the DG, adding that they were trying to make the staffing process more transparent.
Dr Rafiqul Islam, civil surgeon of Gaibandha, told The Daily Star yesterday that 65 out of 68 employees already joined during the last two days. “We just saw the media reports about the suspension, but we are yet to receive any official instruction either from the ministry or from DGHS.”
Some unruly jobseekers ransacked Jhenidah General Hospital and Gaibandha civil surgeon's office on Saturday, alleging irregularities in the staffing process.
Aggrieved to see their names missing out on the results of the recruitment tests for the posts of office assistant, cardiographer, junior mechanic, MLSS, cook, gardener and ward boy, a group of jobseekers went berserk.
Earlier the health ministry recruited some 3,551 doctors on adhoc basis and 6,347 health assistants to reduce the manpower crisis in the health sector.
News agency UNB adds, local people formed a human chain in Swarupkathi upazila of Pirojpur district yesterday, demanding cancellation of recruitment of 53 employees to the civil surgeon's office.
The lawmaker from Pirojpur-3 constituency, Mohammad Shah Alam, accused the civil surgeon of making the appointments illegally.