Civil services and civil servants have constitutional protection and any attempt to discriminate one department over the other will squarely be an unconstitutional act. The government committed the constitutional offence by allowing cent per cent raise in the basic pay of the employees of 11 selected departments declining the repeated request of the staff of the Auditor General of Pakistan and the Controller General of Pakistan for an audit and account allowance demonstrates that it has priority for some departments. The Finance Division of late allowed special allowance or one basic salary to the employees of the President Secretariat, the Supreme Court and high courts, the Prime Minister Secretariat, Intelligence Bureau, the Federal Board of Revenue, all health institutions, the Airport Security Force and the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority. Simultaneously, the Finance division also allowed cent per cent raise in the daily allowance to the employees of the Intelligence Bureau, the Islamabad Capital Police and motorways and highways police. Also, the staff of the President Secretariat, the Prime Minister Secretariat, the Supreme Court and high courts have been granted with permission for financial incentives at rate of three times their 2008 basic pay scales along with utilities and allowances. The Public Accounts Committee has already given its recommendation for uniformity in the salaries and allowances of all the federal and provincial employees and the government decision is clear violation of the PAC recommendation. It also contravenes the standards made by the Pay Rationalization Committee set up by the government to ensure that no employee or department is discriminated against the other. However, this discrimination is highly conspicuous when summaries for the Prime Minister seeking approval to the grant of incentive packages equal to one month’s pay have already been moved by Auditor General of Pakistan and Controller General of Pakistan and are “under consideration” in the Ministry for Finance. The recent decision appears to kill the summaries of the two audit and accounting departments. It also appears that the two departments are in the Finance division’s bad books. What is more discriminatory is that employees of the few selected blue-eyed departments have already got identical favour in the last four to six months and they include health institutions, IB and ASF and the Finance division did so without referring the matter to the Pay Rationalization Committee. The decision is a dangerous move to infuse further dissatisfaction among the employees not given the “incentive” and this will add to the existing lethargy in the performance of the official duty. Going by the tradition that once a benefit is given cannot be taken back, the government must now extend the similar financial boost to other employees in all the departments without discrimination. The additional burden will be a price that it has to pay for the wrong doing. comments powered by Disqus
