Baseless and Misleading Story about Ambassador Jalil Abbas Jilani
Khawar Ghuman’s story carried by The Dawn today on “Ambassador drawing pension benefits despite audit paras” is unfortunately baseless and misleading. Ambassador Jalil Abbas Jilani, a Foreign Service of Pakistan officer, retired in Grade-22 after a distinguished career in the service of Pakistan spanning over 37 years including as Foreign Secretary. He is presently serving as our Ambassador to the United States in Washington DC.
Like all other civil servants, Ambassador Jilani duly completed all the required formalities after retirement in obtaining requisite clearances and certificates before drawing his pension benefits. One such requirement indeed was the settlement of all outstanding audit paras, which was strictly complied with in Ambassador Jilani’s case. Any suggestion or insinuation otherwise including the claim that Ambassador Jilani “received all his benefits without having cleared the audit objections” is completely unfounded and scandalous and is categorically denied.
Interestingly, the news story also contradicts itself by quoting sources in the same report that claim that Ambassador Jilani did get the requisite clearance leading to payment of all his retirement related dues.
It needs to be appreciated that all the procedural requirements pertaining to retirement of officials in the Foreign Service of Pakistan are duly observed as a standard practice and without exception by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Novermber 30, 2015
Washington D.C
