ISLAMABAD, Feb 24: Most of the trade attaches posted at Pakistani missions abroad during the last three years seem to be lacking know-how about their jobs, an official information available with Dawn revealed.

From a total of 34 trade ambassadors, ministers, counsellor generals, commercial counsellors, commercial secretaries appointed in the last three years, only eight belong to commerce and trade (C&T) group of the Central Superior Services (CSS), while the remaining 26 were taken from the other groups, mostly from the District Management Group (DMG).

The statistics showed that of 26 trade officers posted abroad, 12 belong to DMG, four from customs and excise (C&E), three from office management group (OMG), two secretariat group, two from accounts group, one each from income tax, private secretary and ex-cadre.

Further details of the year-wise posting abroad showed that during the year 2002-03, two consul general, Ejaz Ahmad of C & T group and Mohammad Riaz of Customs and Excise, were posted at Sydney and Istanbul respectively.

The commercial counsellors posted abroad during the year under review included, Shahid Mahmood at Beijing, Fawad Hasan Fawad at Frankfurt, Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan at Paris, Mohammad Ayub at Tehran. All these officers belong to the DMG.

Ms Sumaira K. Aslam posted as commercial counsellor at Bangkok belong to Ex-cadre, Azhar Ali Chaudhry at Rome from C&T, Mrs Anjum Assad Amin at Stockholm of C&T and S.M Tahir at Kabul from secretariat group during the same period under review.

For the first time, a trade ambassador to World Trade Organization (WTO), Dr Manzoor Ahmad from secretariat group, was appointed during the year 2002-03. He had also worked as customs officer at World Customs Organization (WCO) in Brussels for more than 10 years.

The trade minister, Ashraf M. Hayat, posted at Washington is from accounts group, two commercial secretaries appointed during the year under review, Qamar Sarwar Abbasi posted at Tashkent belong to OMG and Mrs Sara Saeed at the Hague belong to DMG.

During the year 2003-04, one trade minister Tariq Iqbal Puri posted at Brussels belong to C&T group. During the year 2004-05, the government posted three trade ministers, Zafar Iqbal Qadir at Geneva from DMG, Fazal Abbas Maken (designate) at New Delhi from DMG and Aftab Anwar Baloch (designate) posted at Moscow from customs and excise.

The consul generals appointed during the year under review included Tariq Shafi Chak posted at Hong Kong belongs to DMG, Saifullah Chatta at Montreal from DMG and Zafaruddin Mahmood (private secretary) at Shanghai.

The commercial counsellors appointed during the year 2004-05 included Ms Seema Najeeb posted at New York belongs to DMG, Hijab Gul at Jeddah of account group, Shahid Ashraf Tarar at Los Angeles of DMG, Dr Muhammad Saeed at Geneva of customs and excise group, Ms Shaista Sohail at Geneva of DMG, Ms Azra Mujtaba at Mexico from Income Tax, Asaf Ghafoor at Seol of C&T, Nazir Ahmad Awan (designate) at Sao Paulo of C&T, Imtiaz Ahmad Khan (designate) at Kuala Lumpur of customs and excise.

The commercial secretaries appointed during the year under review included Ms Roubina Taufiq at Dhaka from C&T, Ms Azra Jamali at Johannesburg from OMG, Shahzad Hussain Rana (designate) at Almaty from and Dr Muhammad Iqbal Thaheem at Warsaw from OMG.

Those who were posted abroad excluding C&T group during the last many years were least interested to work in any commerce and trade related department when they returned to Pakistan to give any benefit out of foreign experience to the relevant ministry Around 18 trade officers from different groups joined their parent departments after the completion of their tenure as trade officers in missions abroad.