NAB, FIA, others have already got pay raise

ISLAMABAD: Budget 2020-21 will stamp the hefty increase in pay already given to selected classes in the bureaucracy through executive, leaving the dominant majority in the civil service disappointing as it brought no raise in their salary and pension.

Like in the past, the present budget of the federal and provincial governments will regularise the special raise given to selected groups by these governments through executive orders without consulting the legislature.

The budget 2020-21 though announces no raise in salaries for the government servants, it documents and regularises the hefty raise already given to officers of FIA, Naya Pakistan Housing etc after the 2019-20 budget by the present government through executive order.

Similarly months before the 2019-20 budget, salaries of the employees of NAB were increased (more than double) through executive order and later in the 2019-20 the same raise was regularised.

During the last year’s fiscal year, the judicial allowance of the employees of Supreme Court, High Courts, Judicial Academy, Pakistan Law Commission, Banking Tribunals etc were also raised through administrative orders.

Only recently, the Supreme Court in its order had directed the government to give 20 percent special allowance to all the federal government employees and observed that the federal government could not discriminate against its employees.

However, it is interesting to note that the Supreme Court as well as all High Courts had increased by 300 percent the salaries of their employees several years back. These raises for the officials of the judiciary were referred to as precedents in different cases where selected groups were allowed special pay raises but it all ended up furthering discrimination.

The Federal Secretariat employees are getting 20 percent secretariat allowance, which makes them better off as compared to those serving in attached departments etc. Interesting, the SC recently found the same secretariat allowance as discriminatory and thus ordered the federal government to give this 20 percent to all employees of the federal government.

The government did not even give this 20 percent raise in the present budget to all the employees of the federal government. 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 the 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 as well.

Although the SC termed the 20 percent secretariat allowance discriminatory, the apex court’s attention has not been diverted to special pay raises given to special groups of government servants from time to time through executive orders, which have completely distorted the unified pay scale system, introduced for the civil bureaucracy in 1973 through Administrative Reforms.

Bypassing the legislature, the repeated interventions from the executive have created such absurd islands of exceptions. In 2018, initially it was the KP government, which allowed 150 percent raise given as “Executive Allowance” only to PAS (ex-DMG) and PMS (ex-PCS) officers serving in the province.

Mid last year in July 2019, the Buzdar government while following the KP precedent raised by 150 percent the running basic salary of provincial bureaucratic elite without consulting the provincial assembly.

This highly discriminatory raise was linked with selected almost 1,700 posts in the name of “Executive Allowance”. The beneficiaries predominantly belong to ex-DMG (now Pakistan Administrative Service) and ex-PCS (presently called Provincial Management Service). This phenomenal raise was approved by the provincial cabinet and notified on July 29 within weeks after the Punjab Assembly passed the provincial budget.

The posts earmarked for the “Executive Allowance” include almost all posts of provincial secretaries, additional chief secretaries, members of board of revenue, additional secretaries, deputy secretaries, section officers, commissioners, deputy commissioners, assistant commissioners, revenue officials, special judicial magistrates. However, no below grade 17 officer in these departments/offices was allowed this raise.

Before the KP and Punjab, the Supreme Court, High Courts, FBR, NAB etc had allowed their employees to draw higher salaries than others. Such exceptional raises for selected influential classes of the civil bureaucracy is given through executive orders while ignoring the predominant majority of the government servants who set their eye on the annual budget for a pay raise. This year’s budget offers them nothing.