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The term „talent abuse‟ is conceptual in nature and has alternatively been used for talent mismanagement in this current study. The purpose of this study is to explore how the talent of contractual/ project based staff in the public sector provincial department of Pakistan, is mismanaged in terms of attraction, recruitment, selection, retention, succession planning, training and development when filtered through different challenges. Talent management has mostly been studied through western contextual lens, therefore, this research bridges the knowledge gap by exploring how “talent”, a euphemism for people, gets abused by talent mismanagement within the public sector of Pakistan. The data has been collected through indepth interviews from 15 contractual staff, hired on project basis, at managerial and nonmanagerial positions in a public department in Punjab. Purposive sampling technique has been used to approach these 15 project staff members. The findings show that the barriers/ challenges leading to talent abuse can be grouped as structural, cultural, managerial, behavioral and environmental. This research has practical implications for policy makers and practitioners to cogitate on the most neglected area i.e. talent management in the public sector of Pakistan. This research suggests that it‟s a high time to align the strategic objectives/goals with the need to nurture human capital by implementing talent management programs assiduously.