The rift between government groups regarding executive compensation widens.
Groups representing economics, commerce, and information stage a demonstration in front of the ministry of finance.
ISLAMABAD: Following the approval of a 150% planning allowance by the Punjab government, the three service groups came together on Monday to vent their dissatisfaction against the federal government and the state for arbitrarily ignoring them in the process of awarding the executive allowance.
In front of the finance ministry, the Economist and Technical Group, the Commerce and Trade Group, and the Information Service Group staged a demonstration against the issuing of a discriminatory notification that primarily favoured the all-powerful Pakistan Administrative Services.
On Monday, these officers initiated a pen down strike, which severely hampered the work being done in their respective ministries.
The demonstrations took place one week after the cabinet of the Punjab province gave its approval to a new planning performance allowance for the employees of the Planning and Development Department of the province. This allowance is equivalent to 150% of the running basic wage.
The province development portfolio expanded from Rs135 billion in 2009 to Rs685 billion in 2023, which resulted in a 507% rise in the workload of the officers. As a result of this increase, the provincial development officers have been granted this allowance.
A decision to award officers of the Planning and Development Board with a Planning Performance Allowance at a rate equal to 150% of their regular base pay was authorised by the cabinet of the Punjab province just the week before last.
The decision was made by the cabinet of Punjab in accordance with a decision made in 2019 by the government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. That decision provided officers in the planning cadre a Planning Performance Allowance that was equivalent to 150% of their original basic pay.
Ironically, the federal cabinet granted approval for a 150% executive allowance back in June of this year, citing the same rationale that brilliant officers were not prepared to serve in the federal bureaucracy due to greater compensation in the provinces. This is a bit of a conundrum. However, the notification was crafted by the ministry of finance in such a way as to disadvantage the major service groups while primarily favouring the Pakistan Administrative Service Group and the Secretariat Group.
Ghazala Channar, the deputy chief of the Planning Commission and one of the dozens of officers who were protesting in front of the finance ministry, said, “We have been given a message that this country did not need professions like economists and technical experts.” Channar was one of the officers who participated in the demonstration.
She went on to say that the earlier notification provided by the Finance Division was biassed, and that only a particular group had profited from it.
“We negotiated with all relevant people and even suspended our protest in the past on the request of the planning secretary and the planning minister but no one is hearing us and instead we are blamed for blackmailing the state,” Ghazala said. “We negotiated with all relevant people and even suspended our protest in the past on the request of the planning secretary and the planning minister.”
The current state of Pakistan’s economy does not allow for any form of extravagance; however, certain groups of people and people in general are receiving enormous benefits, and government ministers and parliamentarians are busy travelling internationally and driving brand new, expensive luxury vehicles despite this.
According to Mohammad Zeeshan, an assistant chief economic section of the Planning Commission, “the cabinet decision is designed for all the civil service groups’ officials serving in the Pak Secretariat but some elements in the government caused prejudice.”
According to Zeeshan, it was difficult to swallow the inequality in which one officer was given the executive allowance while the other was denied it despite the fact that the latter officer had completed more paperwork.
Initially, just the Economist Group was participating in the demonstration, but then it was joined by officers from the Information Group and the Commerce Group, both of which had also been shortchanged.
It is up to the government to decide whether it would provide the allowance to all of the officials who work in the Pak Secretariat or whether it will fully do away with the allowance.
According to the sources, the matter had also been discussed at the level of the prime minister because certain officers of the PM’s team were also left out, most notably those with a background in the military. The sources said that the matter had also been discussed at the level of the prime minister.
The Economist Group is a highly marginalised civil service group in Pakistan, which frequently forces young people to resign from government jobs. However, according to conventional wisdom, it should have been the central pillar of economic planning in the country.
According to the officers, the inflation rate of 27% hits them harder when they consider the fact that an officer from the PAS sitting next door was receiving a 150% executive allowance for doing a smaller amount of work.
According to the sources, the Finance Division had drafted a notification in order to grant the 150% executive allowance to the officers who had been left out under the condition that they would give up any other allowances that they were receiving. The notification is awaiting the final approval stage at this time.
