Civil servants to make up to Rs120,000 to 'help Pakistan increase exports'

Commerce ministry gives approval to allowance in bid to ‘conduct studies that will increase exports’

ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to hand out large amounts as monthly allowances to bureaucrats, a move which has landed both parties in hot water.

Officials serving in the Ministry of Commerce will receive up to Rs120,000 for “conducting studies for promotion of exports”.



According to sources, Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan, who chairs the Board of Export Development Fund (EDF), approved to pay between Rs50,000 and Rs120,000 in monthly allowances to all bureaucrats in service, except for the federal secretary. However, the commerce minister stated in the board meeting that he was doing this on the bureaucracy’s insistence.

Under the proposal, the least amount will be received by a grade-17 officer, which is even higher than the pay scale. Moreover, the maximum allowance was reserved for a grade-21 officer.

In order to keep the matter a secret, the ministry did not formally put the proposal on the agenda of the board meeting. At present, the size of the EDF stands at Rs32 billion.

While officers will be paid the monthly allowance for carrying out studies to promote exports, most bureaucrats are not trained to conduct detailed technical and scientific studies since many are not even qualified to undertake them.

Ministry officials confirmed that the proposal was approved, however, the commerce minister was not available for comment due to an ongoing trip to China along with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The move has already met resistance from the Ministry of Finance which has not yet endorsed the highly controversial decision.

What makes the proposal contentious is that, among other things, it seems that the bureaucracy is eying the exporters’ money at a time when the country’s exports are constantly declining. The EDF is collected by levying a 0.25% surcharge on all export consignments and is intended for developing projects to encourage exports. But the money cannot be granted in salaries to civil servants since, in the past, the Public Accounts Committee has directed to recover the EDF amount used for official purposes.

In addition to this, the present government has been missing its annual export target for the past four years.

According to sources, the basic purpose of giving the additional salary to the civil servants was to double their existing salaries. The commerce ministry officials argued that there was huge disparity between the salaries of various government departments. They added that due to the disparity, the commerce and trade group officers were more inclined to work at these lucrative posts.

FPCCI gives the nod

Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) President Zubair Tufail also supported the proposal during the board meeting.



“I only supported the salaries for appointment of researchers as the Ministry of Commerce is short of 46 regular staff and they have almost no staff for market research,” said Tufail, while giving his position on the matter. “These researchers will be paid from the EDF and their studies will help the exporters.”

However, Tufail insisted that he did not endorse any proposal to give salaries to the ministry officials from the EDF.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2017.

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