Pay and Pension Commission: Chairperson says time for serious reforms

ISLAMABAD: Chairperson Pay and Pension Commission Nargis Sethi has said that they would prepare an implementation plan along with a detailed report in order to give way forward to the government. A total of 29 Pay and Pension Commission/Committees were formed since the country’s inception but with no tangible impact.

“It is time for serious reforms, or we would not be able to cope with the contemporary requirements for governance and a few years down the lane, the bureaucratic apparatus would be gearing faster towards dysfunctionality,” stated the findings of a research report on civil service reforms launched by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) here on Thursday. The report was prepared by PIDE team under the supervision of economist Dr Durre Nayab along with others in collaboration with the support of UNDP.

Ms Nargis Sethi said on the occasion of launching of the report that she recognized distortions within different allowances that call for an exercise of rationalization. However, she also reminded that the civil service extends beyond Islamabad and includes provinces and other allied departments and organizations.

While answering a query, she agreed that there was no need to adopt piecemeal approach as comprehensive approach and strategy could tackle problems for bringing reforms into civil service.

Vice Chancellor PIDE Dr Nadeem Ul Haq asked for transparency as data was not available making any in-depth research more difficult. He criticised the World Bank-funded PIFRA project and said that millions of dollars were utilized but there was no data available in the public domain. The report titled “Cash Poor, Perks (Plots, Privileges) Rich: Civil Service Compensation, Incentives, Dissatisfaction and Cost” launched in an online webinar states that there are distortions with the pay and packages within the civil services as there are different pay structure.