Honorarium policy stuck in limbo
The ECC chairman was of the opinion that the honorarium facility should be open for all employees of the federal government. Photo: file
The policy of giving honorarium to government officials for good performance has again stuck in limbo as the finance ministry withdrew it from a cabinet meeting.
During a cabinet huddle held on June 7, the minister for finance and revenue requested that the agenda item titled “Policy for grant of honorarium” may be treated as withdrawn.
Earlier, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) approved the grant of honorarium to the government officials for the best performance.
The cabinet took up the matter for giving its approval. However, in the last hour, the finance minister withdrew the policy from the meeting agenda.
The Finance Division, in a meeting of the ECC, revealed that following the prime minister’s directives, it submitted a summary with the cabinet for the grant of special performance incentive to the officers/ officials of the federal government.
The cabinet had directed on May 31, 2018 that honorarium may be given to the newly elected government. Based on that decision, the prime minister directed the Finance Division to place a draft policy before the cabinet.
At present, there is no reward regime in place for the high-performing individuals in the federal government. This demotivates them and adversely affects the functioning of the federal government.
The Finance Division has proposed a reward policy for the grant of honoraria, once in a fiscal year, based on the performance appraisal of the employees. There will be three types of honoraria.
These include performance honorarium, special honorarium and budget honorarium.
The principal accounting officer will grant the performance honorarium equal to one-month basic pay to the well-performing officers/ officials of a ministry/ division.
The accounting officer may also grant one additional honorarium equal to one basic pay, on outstanding performance, to not more than 25% employees of a ministry/ division.
The special honorarium, up to two-month basic pay, will be granted by the principal accounting officer to a specific individual for the performance of a special one-time task, assigned by the accounting officer, beyond the normal official responsibilities during the course of a financial year.
The special honorarium will not be granted to more than five employees in a ministry/ division during a financial year.
The finance minister will grant the budget honorarium to the employees of the Finance Division, Revenue Division and Federal Board of Revenue.
According to the policy draft, the Finance Division has proposed the budget honorarium for the employees posted in the Revenue Division; Federal Board of Revenue; Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Division and Prime Minister’s Office.
The sum of the budget honorarium for each financial year will be decided by the finance minister.
During the ensuing discussion, most of the ministers and secretaries did not agree to the proposal of the Finance Division.
The ECC chairman intervened and was of the opinion that the honorarium facility should be open for all employees of the federal government.
The ECC considered the summary submitted by the Finance Division titled “Policy for grant of honorarium” and decided that the principal accounting officer would grant the performance honorarium equal to one-month basic pay (BS-1 to BS-22) to the well-performing officers/ officials of a ministry/ division.
The accounting officer may grant one additional honorarium equal to one basic pay (BS-1 to BS-22), on outstanding performance, to not more than 25% employees of a ministry/ division.
The special honorarium, up to two-month basic pay, will be granted by the accounting officer to a specific individual employee for the performance of a special one-time task, assigned by the accounting officer, beyond the normal official responsibilities during the course of a financial year.
The special honorarium will not be granted to more than five employees in a ministry/ division during a financial year.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 18th, 2022.
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