A wobbly devolution: Where is the paycheck?

Salaries of PTDC employees will continue to be withheld, owing to complications arising from devolution of PTDC.

ISLAMABAD:

After over a year of delays in the payment of salaries, hundreds of Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) employees can expect to remain unpaid for a few more months, according to an official source at the corporation.

“So far, the federal government has failed to pay the Rs930 million required to clear around 18 months of outstanding wages to the PTDC staff,” said the official, requesting anonymity.

These outstanding salaries have delayed obligatory transfer of the PTDC to the provinces, originally due in 2011, under the 18th constitutional amendment.

Apart from Rs930 million required to clear dues, around Rs26 million are needed on a monthly basis to meet salary needs.



A rocky transition

PTDC has been placed along with its subsidiaries under the ministry of inter-provincial coordination (IPC) during this transitional phase.

It is the IPC that asked for Rs930 million from the government to clear outstanding dues. The non-payment of these funds was confirmed by Muhammad Ejaz Chaudhry, secretary of the IPC, on Thursday.

“The situation is as it was three months ago,” Chaudhry said. “We have sent reminders to the [federal] government.”

The transition has been rocky for other reasons, as well.

In 2012, the Lahore High Court (LHC) and the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) temporarily barred the federal government from implementing its rightsizing scheme.

This scheme was planned by the IPC to aid the devolution. In this manner, the body planned to tackle the issue of overstaffing, as provinces remain unwilling to accept management of the corporation with its present size of employees.

And yet, before the IPC could take execute the scheme, PTDC employees, fearing retrenchment, approached the LHC, the Islamabad High Court and the NIRC.

In light of the petitions filed by employees, LHC and NIRC issued restraint orders and told the federal government that it could not transfer management of PTDC and its employees to the provinces unless the pending salaries were paid and legal benefits and protection of service assured.

Meanwhile, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government has consistently been pressing for the immediate transfer of PTDC, along with 20 motels, restaurants, and tourist information centre, to the province. During the transitional period, tourism has declined significantly. K-P, in particular, has taken a big hit.

The IPC, in view of stay orders issued by the LHC and NIRC, has been unable to comply so far.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2014.