Tightening the belt: Go after secretaries, say provincial civil servants

PMSA president says abolishing seats would only save Rs550m a month.

LAHORE: The Provincial Management Service Association (PMSA) has urged the Punjab government to consider cutting the perks and privileges of senior bureaucrats and tackle corruption if it is serious about ending its financial crisis.

The Punjab government is considering abolishing a number of posts in order to cut its expenses. The PMSA represents officers of the Provincial Civil Service and the Provincial Management Service.

PMSA President Rai Manzoor Nasir told The Express Tribune on Saturday that the Punjab government’s idea to abolish redundant posts sounded good, but he believed it would prove no more than a political stunt.

“The Punjab government’s proposals do not explain how much money it will save,” he said. Nasir said that by cutting hundreds of BPS-19, BPS-20 and BPS-21 posts the Punjab government would save only around Rs550 million per month.

He said that 11 PMS officials of BPS-21 and 11 of BPS-20, who recently completed the National Management Course and graduated from the National Institute of Public Administration could not get seats because the Punjab government’s proposals would cut the quotas for these grades.

Nasir said that the Punjab government’s only serious option to end the financial crunch was to take action against pilferage. “Each secretary has six to eight vehicles, huge medical, travel and other allowances and much more,” he said.

He said the government should take action against the senior member of the Board of Revenue and the chief secretary, who he accused of corruption along with patwaris.

Sources in the Services and General Administration Department told The Express Tribune that the senior member of the Board of Revenue and the local government secretary had presented, to a cabinet committee working on cutting the government’s non-development expenditure, a list merely naming the posts to be abolished, without details of how much cutting these posts would save.

The cabinet committee has approved the cutting of several senior posts in the police and four executive district officers in each district government. It is also considering downgrading the posts of divisional commissioners and DCOs of five district governments in Punjab.

The posts of EDOs for information technology, law, literacy and revenue are to be abolished. Also to go are a post each of member (general) and member (judicial) in the Chief Minister’s Inspection Team, as well as one post each of planning and development member and joint chief economist.

The posts of commissioners of divisions not having city district governments would be downgraded from BS-21 to BS-20, but the posts of commissioners of divisions having city district governments would continue to be in BS-21. All divisional commissioners would be downgraded from BS-21 to BS-20.

The committee approved the downgrading of the DCOs of Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala and Rawalpindi from BS-21 to BS-20 and the DCOs in the 31 other districts from BS-20 to 19.

The police jobs to be abolished are additional IGs for vigilance, research and development, and operations, and DIGs for sports and administration.

An additional IG told The Express Tribune that many DIGs are already working on the additional IGs posts, like at the Crimes Investigation Department and the Investigation branch. He said that additional IGs Sarmad Saeed, Chaudhry Tanveer, Humayun Raza Shafi, Kalbe Abbas, Muhammad Rafique and Muhammd Waseem were working in BS 21 and would not be affected.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd, 2011.