Austerity drive: Cabinet panel suggests cut in foreign postings

Reducing redundant offices could save up to Rs3.5b per annum.

ISLAMABAD:

A cabinet panel on Wednesday finalised recommendations for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to reduce posts in foreign missions – created to accommodate blue-eyed officials or made redundant due to no activity – in a bid to cut down expenditures.

The special committee, headed by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, recommended that the premier reduce foreign office positions, commercial attachés, defence attachés, education wings, press counselors and community welfare attachés at over two dozen foreign missions. The heads of the Ministries of Science and Technology, Commerce, Foreign Affairs, Information and Broadcasting, and Information Technology assisted Dar in compiling
the recommendations.



The move is expected to save at least Rs3.5 billion per annum apart from permanently closing the door for certain blue-eyed bureaucrats, according to the finance ministry. The panel has tried to make sure the savings will not impact the output of these missions. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has managed to save some of its posts which could have been abolished as well. The cabinet panel formulated its recommendations on the basis of work done by a sub-committee chaired by Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif constituted the special committee to review the performance of officers posted in Pakistani missions abroad with a view to cutting expenditures as part of the austerity drive without affecting their efficiency and the national interest of Pakistan.

The panel recommended that Prime Minister Nawaz reduce the strength of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in New York, Washington, London, Damascus and Astana etc. Out of the estimated Rs3.5 billion savings, a sum of Rs1 billion is expected to be saved by closing redundant posts of the Foreign Office alone on the basis of its current financial year’s budget.

It also proposed shutting down three press counselors’ offices in Indonesia, Malaysia and Kuwait. The cabinet panel also suggested closing down two education wings in Manchester and Beijing, but decided to retain one situated in Birmingham.

Similarly, the panel proposed abolishing seven community welfare attaché posts of the Ministry of Human Resources Development, which will save approximately Rs150 million. It also asked Prime Minister Nawaz to wind up eight commercial counselor positions. At present, there are 64 commercial counsellors. Many of these posts have not created any demand for Pakistani products and some of them have been set up in stations known as tourist havens.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5^th, 2013.