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Thursday March 28, 2024

Now federal baboos are up for special pay raise

By Ansar Abbasi
October 19, 2019

ISLAMABAD: The federal government is considering a proposal for raise in salary of federal secretariat employees.

A bureaucratic source said that the proposal under consideration is to give a raise of one basic salary to all employees, BS-1 to BS-22, of the federal ministries and divisions.

The source said that if this raise is approved and implemented, it would add Rs4 billion to the salary bill for the federal secretariat employees. However, as has been done in Punjab and KP, this raise if approved will further the discrimination as only the influential selected classes in the bureaucracy are in the process of getting special pay raises one after the other.

In Punjab and KP, only BS-17 to BS-22 employees of selected classes, were given 150 percent raise in their salaries. At the federal secretariat level, the consideration is not to ignore low scale employees – BS-1-16 - if their seniors are given the raise.

Campaign within the federal bureaucracy for special raise for federal secretariat employees got the impetus from extraordinary compensation packages announced by the Punjab and KP government for their selected employees.

In terms of salary and perks, the Punjab and KP secretariats have become far more attractive than the federal secretariat. This strange distortion has been created by the 150 percent raise given to a few selected classes of bureaucracy in the name of “Executive Allowance” initially by KP and then recently by Punjab.

The Buzdar government had raised by 150 percent the running basic salary of provincial bureaucratic elite without consulting the provincial assembly.

This highly discriminatory raise was linked with selected almost 1,700 posts in the name of “Executive Allowance”. The beneficiaries predominately belong to ex-DMG (now Pakistan Administrative Service) and ex-PCS (presently called Provincial Management Service). This phenomenal raise was approved by the provincial cabinet and notified on July 29 within weeks after the Punjab Assembly passed the provincial budget.

The posts earmarked for the “Executive Allowance” include almost all posts of provincial secretaries, additional chief secretaries, members of board of revenue, additional secretaries, deputy secretaries, section officers, commissioners, deputy commissioners, assistant commissioners, revenue officials, special judicial magistrates. However, no below grade 17 officer in these departments/offices was allowed this raise. The KP government last year granted 150 percent raise to all PAS, PMS (PCS) officers in the name of “Executive Allowance”.

The PAS, PCS officers, who are the main beneficiary of these special raises, point out why the government servants working in Supreme Court, High Courts, FBR, FIA, Police etc draw more salaries but no objection is raised against them.

Special pay raises given to special groups of government servants from time to time through executive orders have completely distorted the unified pay scale system, introduced for the civil bureaucracy in 1973 through Administrative Reforms.

Bypassing the legislature, the repeated interventions from the executive have created such absurd islands of exceptions that today a federal secretary in BS-22 draws less salary even than a BS-20 secretary serving in Punjab and KP governments.

According to a retired federal secretary, the pay and allowances have been grossly distorted since 1999 and it all started from judicature. He said that under current dispensation, every employee of judicial establishment (from a Naib Court in a Civil Court to Registrar HC/SCP) draws equal to three to four monthly salaries. A court peon is eligible to draw three pays as judicial allowance.

Later, one after the other different classes in the government service on the basis of their influence and opportunity, started getting extra raises through executive orders. As a consequence, the source said, “The whole system and structures of pays is in a mess!”