Zardari running a 'parallel bureaucracy' in Presidency: Report

Islamabad, Sep.11 (ANI): Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, it seems, likes to work only with a set of his own 'trusted' men, probably the reason why he has virtually made a 'parallel bureaucracy' in the Presidency.

Interestingly, the strength of Zardari's staffers is even larger than what it used to be during General Pervez Musharraf's dictatorship.

Apart from the President's personal staff and an array of political advisors and assistants, there are over half a dozen top level civil servants working in the President's Public Secretariat under Secretary General Salman Faruqi, The Nation reports.

However, Faruqi rejected the notion of any parallel bureaucracy in the Presidency.

Faruqi said the the President's Secretariat (Public) was running with 'bare minimum staff.'

"We are having just one Federal Secretary and one Additional Secretary and four Joint Secretaries looking after day to day affairs of the Presidency," he said.

Faruqi's 'bare minimum staff' claims was laid bare by a document which revealed that there are seven Additional Secretaries and one Federal Secretary in addition to a Press Secretary as well as a retired judge as Consultant Legal Affairs working in the President's Secretariat under Faruqi.

Faruqi also rejected his comparison with Musharraf's key aide Tariq Aziz.

"I never go beyond my domain of Public Secretariat of the President," he said. (ANI)