The caretaker government’s decision to raise salaries for bureaucrats on MP-scale postings has raised eyebrows inside and outside parliament, with some calling for the raises to be withdrawn entirely. The tone-deaf decision to raise the salaries of the country’s highest-paid bureaucrats by a whopping 45% when most taxpayers are struggling to make ends meet reflects poorly on everyone responsible for the country’s financial decision-making. The caretakers even had the gall to demand that cash-strapped ministries cover the additional expenses of these raises from their existing allocations, meaning that money would invariably have to be rerouted from development projects or other actual work.
It is also worth noting that even though most MP-scale hires are well qualified, so are several career bureaucrats who lose out on those posts. Meanwhile, most MP-scale hires are made at the behest of the government of the day, making them loyal to political parties, rather than the state. Add the fact that these raises are across the board and not performance-based, and it is clear that the biggest beneficiaries of this pay hike are political appointees.
Senator Raza Rabbani questioned the legality of the move soon after it was announced, while also noting that at a time when the country is in a “severe economic crunch”, with common citizens having to ration food and borrow to keep the lights on, “the elite is adding cream to its cake”. The widely respected former Senate chairman also noted that if the government had money lying around, it would be better used to giving raises to the lowest-paid government employees, or finance PIA to make it sellable.
While defenders of the raises will point out that the last increase in the scales was in 2017, even without the recent raises, the old salaries of MP-scale officials were enough to put them in the top 10% earners in Pakistan. Such relatively high government salaries are almost unheard of for bureaucrats in countries that are not considered outright kleptocracies.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 4th, 2023.
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