Taxpayers’ expense: Civic agency to send 40 employees for Hajj

Decision approved by CDA Board negates civic agency’s own charter

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan is probably the only Muslim country where government employees perform religious obligations at the expense of taxpayers.

And it’s happening in the presence of a Supreme Court ruling of 2011 where Justice (retired) Sair Ali had said “there is no provision for free Hajj in Islam”.

This year, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) – that always complain about lack of availability of funds when it comes to proper upkeep and maintenance of basic civic facilities in the city – will send 40 of its employees to perform Hajj.



Ironically, instead of gradually limiting the number of employees who perform Hajj on authority’s expense every year, the city managers have steadily been increasing the Hajj quota for the past five years.

“The CDA charter clearly states that the civic agency will only bear Hajj expenses for a maximum of three employees every year,” said a senior official of the administration wing. However, a decision over the matter approved by the CDA Board recently negates its own charter.

The CDA Board on September 18, 2015 approved increase in Hajj quota from 20 to 40 (38 male and two females).

Not only, this, the board, according to the documents available with The Express Tribune, also granted retroactive approval for similar increase in the Hajj quota made during 1981 to 2014.

Sending 40 employees for Hajj will cost the CDA over Rs16 million.

It was in 2010, when following repeated demands from the CDA’s labour union leaders, the authority decided to have a separate Hajj programme of its own instead of under the federal Religious Affairs Ministry.

A decision was also taken to hire private tour operators for the CDA’s Hajj Programme.

As soon as the move went ahead, the number of employees selected for Hajj witnessed a sharp increase.

The city managers continue to keep a mum over the issue and just limited their role in giving anticipatory approvals to the practice. In 2009, only three employees performed Hajj, the number has shot up since then.



According to Hajj 2016 balloting results, held here at the authority’s headquarters on Friday last, some 40 employees were selected out of a total of 7,715 CDA employees of basic scale 1 to 16 whose names were finalised for balloting.

In 2011, while hearing a Hajj scam case, the SC had also ordered recovery of money from those influential citizens who had performed pilgrimage on government’s expense, while the bench had also ordered registration of criminal cases against government officials who were part of that exercise and who facilitated the whole process.

When contacted, the CDA Spokesperson, Ramzan Sajid, said, “almost every federal government department facilitates non-gazetted employees by sending them on Hajj at state expense. The CDA is not alone.”

However, he refused to answer if every government department facilitated such a large number of its employees free of cost. Sajid said money for the purpose would be made available from the employees’ welfare fund.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th,  2016.