Election tumble: ECP officials threaten Senate poll boycott

Finance ministry has withheld a 20% salary allowance for poll body staff

ISLAMABAD:

Simmering tensions between the finance ministry and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) over lack of financial autonomy may stall the upcoming Senate elections.

A significant number of civil servants working in the top poll supervisory body have refused to perform election duty during the upcoming Senate polls in protest against lack of financial autonomy.

Under the law, no department apart from the poll body can supervise Senate elections in the provincial assemblies and both houses of parliament. Elections for 52 senators are slated for March 3, 2015.

The tussle between the poll supervisory body and the finance ministry began after the latter stopped the 20 per cent allowance in salaries of the ECP workers soon after the PML-N government came to power.

A month before the 2013 general elections, then chief election commissioner Justice (retd) Fakharuddin G Ebrahim had approved a 20 per cent allowance in the salaries of ECP staff on March 7, 2013. Then interim finance minister Saleem Mandviwala was part of the meeting that approved the raise. The caretaker prime minister approved the summary on April 4, 2013.

In October 2013, the regulation wing of finance ministry directed the office of Accountant General of Pakistan (AGPR) to stop the said allowance claiming that it would change the “pay structure” of ECP employees compared to other government departments.

Not only was the allowance stopped but the amount dispersed for those months was also debited from the monthly salaries of the ECP employees in installments before the 2014-15 annual budget. Officials at the poll body view the move as an infringement of the financial autonomy the commission has been granted under the constitution. They believe that as an autonomous constitutional body akin to the Supreme Court and parliament, the ECP enjoys a status where the commission is independent to make its own decisions, including financial matters.

The commission, mired in controversy since the resignation of Justice Ebrahim, was being run on an ad-hoc basis by a serving judge of the Supreme Court for over 16 months till the incumbent CEC Justice (retd) Sardar Raza assumed his office last month.

Meanwhile, enraged employees of the ECP had moved to Islamabad High Court, where their case is still pending. However, since the new CEC took office, employees of the commission have been vigorously pursuing their case, arguing vociferously for the restoration of their allowance.

Sources said ECP’s employees from Balochistan had conveyed to the commission on January 30 that they could boycott the polling process in Balochistan Assembly on March 3 when provincial assembly will be electing 12 new senators from the province.

Under the rules, each provincial election commissioner acts as presiding officer and is assisted by other officials of the ECP’s provincial chapter on polling day.

Employees from Sindh, Punjab and ECP headquarters have also conveyed their sentiments to the CEC and the four members of the commission, ECP insiders revealed.

“To press their case, some employees have sent a comparison of salaries from other departments and the ECP. They have attached salary slips. A driver working with Supreme Court gets more salary than a grade 17 officer of ECP,” sources privy to the development claimed.

However, the tug of war revolves around more than just the salaries of commission staff. Officials accuse the finance ministry of putting undue pressure on the ECP by refusing the commission financial autonomy. They claim that under a government notification issued in 2000, the CEC was empowered to take all financial decisions related to ECP, which is still valid.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 2rd, 2015.