ISLAMABAD: The federal cabinet Tuesday discussed in detail the salary issue of government servants and found that it had no money to give 100% raise as demanded by the federal secretariat employees, who have been on a pen-down strike since March 2.
Informed sources said Prime Minister Imran Khan had tasked Adviser on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh with engaging with the protesting secretariat employees to bring their strike to an end.
The cabinet decided that because of serious financial constraints, whatever raise was decided would be given with effect from July 1, 2020 — the next fiscal year. The finance ministry told the cabinet that in no way could it meet the expectations of secretariat employees demanding 100% raise.
The cabinet also admitted that the pay structure of government employees had been badly distorted because of special pay raises given to selected groups from time to time at the federal and provincial levels. Besides distorting the unified pay scale scheme, these discriminatory raises also caused heartburning among the civil servants.
The prime minister, the sources said, directed the authorities concerned to study the issue of salaries in its entirety and come up with recommendations.
It was also decided to engage the provinces, as some of the provinces, particularly the Punjab and KP, have given extraordinary raises to selected groups, causing inequality between the salaries of a provincial secretary in these provinces and the federal secretary, with the former drawing much.
In such a situation, it was discussed why government servants would prefer serving the federal government to the provinces. It was said that traditionally the provincial governments used to raise the salaries of government servants in line with the raise given by the federal government. In such a situation, there has never been a distortion like the present one where the provincial secretary draws higher salary than a federal secretary.
According to sources, the cabinet was told that around Rs150 billion would be required if the government decided to give 20% raise to the federal government servants including those serving in the armed forces.
Even this amount (Rs150b) is considered “too much” by the financially stricken regime, which has to borrow money to pay whatever raise is given to the government servants.
The federal secretariat employees from BS-1 to BS-16 have been on strike since March 2. It is said junior officers of the federal secretariat have also joined the strike amid reports that the top bureaucracy in the secretariat has the tacit approval of this strike as the demand seeks 100% raise in salary for all employees, BS-1 to BS-22, of the federal ministries and divisions.
On the salary raise issue, the government already finds itself in hot water, as the Supreme Court last month found the 20% secretariat allowance (which is given to the employees of ministries and divisions) as discriminatory and ordered that 20% raise should also be given to the employees of attached departments etc. The implementation of the SC order will require around another Rs150 billion, as 20% has to be given with effect from 2013.
Although the government has not yet decided how to go about it, there is a consideration to file a review with the SC against the said decision. The SC bench, which heard the case, observed that the federal government could not discriminate against its employees and ruled that now all the federal government employees will get the special allowance.
The then PPP government had approved a special allowance of 20 percent in March 2013 for the employees of ministries and divisions of Pakistan Secretariat but it was not given to the employees of the attached departments.
To end discrimination, the employees of other departments, including the Federal Government College Teachers Association, Pakistan PWD, departments of communication security, CDA union and Pakistan Council of Science and Technology, approached the IHC in April 2013 challenging that the allowance should also be paid to them.
The Secretaries Committee recently recommended 100% raise for all the federal secretariat employees. The Committee’s recommendations, which are presently being pressed by the striking secretariat employees, if implemented by any level of raise will again be discriminatory as per the SC’s recently ruling. Therefore, any raise to be considered will be considered for all federal government employees.
Interestingly, the federal secretariat employees’ frustration was also the result of the PTI government’s earlier decisions of exclusively increasing the salaries of NAB, FIA, and Naya Pakistan Housing employees by almost 150 to 200 percent.