ISLAMABAD: At a time of rising public debt and liabilities that have gone up to Rs33.238 trillion, the PTI led government has notified appointment of Abdul Rehman Warriach as director general (DG) Debt Office at the Ministry of Finance with maximum emoluments of MP-1 for drawing salary of Rs796,160 per month.
According to notification issued by the Ministry of Financeon Wednesday stating that in pursuance of approval accorded by the federal government in accordance with Section 12 (1) (b) of the Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation Act, 2005, Abdul Rehman Warriach, Director (Debt), is appointed as Director General Debt Policy Coordination Office (DPCO) of Finance Division, Islamabad, on contract basis for a period of two years. He will be entitled to draw Rs796,160 per month as the total emoluments as per maximum of MP-1 scale. His appointments will take effect from the date of his joining.
However, the sources said that the notification for his appointment was issued by the competent authority but, so far, he had not joined his office at Ministry of Finance. The newly notified DG Debt Office is expected to assume his charge within next few days.
Before analysing the surge in public debt and liabilities, the IMF in its latest report on Pakistan highlighted the importance for strengthening the Debt Office. The rising debt burden is becoming real challenge for the country so the debt office should be strengthened first and then a comprehensive debt strategy also needs to be devised to tackle this increasing monster.
The public debt and liabilities have been increasing at supersonic speed as it stood at Rs29 trillion on June 30, 2018, but it went up to Rs33.238 trillion by December 2018. It indicates that the public debt and liabilities pushed up by Rs4 trillion in first six months of the current fiscal year.
When contacted the official quarters of the government for seeking comments, they stated that the exchange rate fluctuation resulted into rising into burden of public debt. The public debt, they said, went up by Rs1,350 billion in rupee term while the increasing budget deficit was also causing hike in debt servicing.
“With this pace of increase in public debt and liabilities, it might be standing in the range of Rs50 to Rs60 trillion within next five years,” said independent economists and added that the government would have to slash down the budget deficit through raising tax and non-tax revenues as well as curtailing expenditures in big way; otherwise, the PTI wish to reduce the burden of debt was bound to fail.
The newly appointed DG Debt Office at the Ministry of Finance possessed qualification of Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), and he had served in Punjab on managing the debt of the provincial government.
He had advised Punjab’s Finance Department in three key areas of reforms undertaken as part of Sub-National Governance Programme being executed by the Government of the Punjab with Technical Assistance from DFID (Department for International Development) of UK, including improving Debt Management through a Medium Term Debt Management Strategy focusing on diversification of borrowing sources, borrowing instruments and maturity profiles of the instruments in order to mobilise more resources for development needs of the province, lower the cost of debt and enhance sustainability of the debt portfolio; improving Governance, Risk Management and Compliance in respect of Public Sector Companies established by Government of the Punjab for achievement of various public purposes and policy and administrative reforms relating to provincial taxes through a revenue mobilisation strategy which focuses on evidence based target setting, enhanced automation and training & development of human resources.
From June 2011 to April 2013, he served as risk management specialist in Punjab and worked developing/improving the risk management guidelines for meaningful analysis of the PPP projects, analysing the PPP projects under consideration and advising the PPP Steering Committee regarding justification and eligibility of the projects, identification, allocation & mitigation of financial risks involved and instruments & estimated costs of government support.
