Dr Bengali says he proposed abolishing 60 entities to save Rs35bn annually

ISLAMABAD: Renowned economist Dr Kaiser Bengali said he had proposed abolishing 60 entities/attached departments of 15 ministries/divisions at federal levels to save Rs35 billion per annum.

While sharing reasons for tendering resignation on the government’s formed austerity/rightsizing committee he had never supported any idea of downsizing by sacking employees but recommended cutting down non-salaried expenditures such as closing down offices, saving electricity, fuel bills etc.

In a media session organised by the National Press Club, Islamabad in collaboration with other partners on Friday, Dr Kaiser Bengali said that he preferred to resign from the government’s austerity/rightsizing committee when the government presented a report to the prime minister without getting the assent of the committee. It recommended abolishing 150,000 vacant posts of lower grades from 1 to 15. However, the government refused to abolish posts belonging to Grades 20 to 22 such as federal secretaries, additional secretaries and director generals (DGs). “We have converted into a Casino Economy which cannot be run on a sustained basis through the existing structure so every institution of the state will have to contribute towards reducing its expenditure,” Dr Bengali said.

He was of the view that there was no room for maximising tax revenues keeping in view stifling of growth and fiscal deficit could only be reduced through curtailing expenditure. There is a need to kickstart such an initiative so he became part of the government’s formed committees but found that they were non-serious for implementing any decision. The performance of the economic managers, he said, was judged by how they managed to secure loans to pay off the debt stocks.

He proposed closing down of nine divisions including Aviation, Capital Administration and Development, Housing and Works, Human Rights, National Food Security and Research, Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, Poverty Alleviation and Social Security and States and Frontier Region. He proposed merging the Maritime Division with the Communication Division, Railways with the Communication Division, Defence Production with the Defense Division, National Security Division with the Defence Division, Narcotics with the Interior Division, Economic Affairs Division with the Finance Division and Revenue Division with the Finance Division.

He recommended merging three divisions including Federal Education and Professional Training, Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development and Poverty Alleviation & Social Security into a new division called Human Development.

He mentioned names of 60 entities/attached departments of respective ministries/divisions for closing down and their non-salaried expenditure could save Rs35 billion. If the salaried component is included then the savings could go up to Rs100 billion. He said, “The country had plunged into bankruptcy for the last ten years.

The IMF has now lost faith in us. We borrow by selling political autonomy. The country is currently being run by a casino economy (gambling economy). Today, the state has to decide whether to save the country or not.” “Our biggest expense comes in the form of diesel costs for freight delivery, which can be eliminated by enabling railways as it could reduce the cost in the range of 15 to 17 percent.

The renowned economist said that the $7 billion agreement with the IMF has calmed the market and created the usual sense of complacency, however, the crisis and its seriousness have not subsided. The economy continues to survive on the debt-ventilator. The economy will come out of the perpetual crisis mode only if the twin deficits including fiscal deficit and current account deficit are brought down to sustainable levels.