Snowball effect feared: PM fattens federal secretariat salaries by 20%

The move will put an additional Rs533 million burden on the national exchequer.

ISLAMABAD:

Despite budgetary constraints, Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has approved a 20% increase in the salaries of Federal Secretariat employees.

According to a finance ministry official, the premier has approved the benefits on the recommendations of Finance Minister Saleem Mandviwalla. The decision will put an additional Rs533 million burden on the national exchequer, the official added.

The government took the measure following a sit-in staged in front of the Pak Secretariat after the union locked the entrance to the building on Friday. The employees were irked by the government’s approval of a similar increase in the salaries for the employees of the Accountant General Pakistan Revenue (AGPR).

The decision comes 10 days before the government completes its constitutional term and is seen as a political stunt aimed at winning over federal government employees. Although the federal government does not have budgetary allocations for mid-year financial decisions, the extra salaries will be paid through supplementary grants to all departments -- which is against prudent fiscal management.



Twice in a week the government has ignored recommendations of the Pay and Pension Committee, constituted to address the anomalies in pay structures. Headed by former governor State Bank of Pakistan, Dr Ishrat Hussain, the panel has recommended that the government implement unified pay structures.

“The government has made the committee irrelevant and become a law unto itself,” said Dr Hussain told The Express Tribune. By increasing salaries of selective groups, he said, the government was encouraging others to make similar demands.

Dr Hussain said the decision carried a snowball impact and soon the employees of corporations and provinces would demand similar treatment.

The finance ministry, however, insisted that the decision was aimed at facilitating federal government employees in particular. During the last five years, the federal government has increased the salaries of federal government employees by more than 120%, it added.

The ministry official said the employees of the Supreme Court, Federal Board of Revenue, AGPR, armed forces and those already receiving double salaries will not be entitled to 20% special allowance.

The employees of AGPR, Presidency, Prime Minister Secretariat, Federal Board of Revenue, judiciary, armed forces, National Highway and Motorway Police, Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority, National Accountability Bureau and the PM’s security have already joined the privileged club, entitled to special pay.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 5^th, 2013.