Cabinet to consider security of bureucrats tenure

ISLAMABAD: At the time of weakening bureaucratic structure, the federal cabinet is scheduled to meet today (Thursday) for considering approval of the Establishment Division’s summary for providing security of tenure to top civil servants.

According to the cabinet agenda available with The News, the federal cabinet under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Imran will take up an 11-point agenda, including the cabinet approval for renewal of aerial work licence class-II (domestic and international) of VIP flights, Government of Punjab, for a further period of one year with effect from September 30, 2018.

The Punjab government requires this permission for using the VIP flights for another one year up to September 2019. The security of tenure of civil servants has become a problematic area in the civil service and many bureaucrats claim that the lack of security of tenure and continuous interference of political masters into the affairs of bureaucracy have damaged the performance and governance structure. Now, it remain's to be seen how much the government is able to implement its policy of protecting the tenure of senior civil servants if the cabinet grants its assent to the proposal forwarded by the Establishment Division.

Although, plenty of reports were made in the past in the name of civil service reforms, but they never got implemented. For instance, during the tenure of the PPP led regime on the insistence of the Planning Commission, the government introduced monetisation of cars for top bureaucrats, but it was misused by almost all the baboos and now they are enjoying official cars as well as substantial amount on monthly basis.

The cabinet will also consider approval for ratification of the agreement on transfer of convicts signed between Pakistan and Republic of Azerbaijan. The ministry of commerce has forwarded a summary to the federal cabinet for granting permission to allow transit trade of 01X20 feet container STC containing 5 packages of spare parts of Toyota vehicles (banned items) of UNAMA from Karachi to Kabul. The cabinet is also going to take up approval of centralised procurement of ICT infrastructure to ensure E-Readiness of federal government for implementation of E-Government programme. The implementation is underway for the last several years, but it never got completed.

The cabinet is all set to consider approval of signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination Government of Pakistan and the Republic of Rwanda. The meeting chaired by the PM will also take up approval to sign an MoU on cooperation in the field of Disaster Management between Afghan National Disaster Management Govt of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Govt of Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

The cabinet will also grant approval of additional charge of Managing Director, Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation. The cabinet will also grant ratifications to the decisions taken by the ECC in its meeting held on 07-11-2018.