Two news reports of last October read with the statement of Mr. Shaukat Aziz of June 2004, during the budget speech as the finance minister, to the effect that salaries and pensions of civil and military employees
would be revised by December 2004 make a very interesting reading.
The reports pertain to the possible formulation of new pay scales for government employees (including civil and military ones) and the constitution of a 17-member Pay and Pension Committee 2004 to recommend the revision in salaries and the pensions.
It is interesting more so because the Prime Minister, who inherently remains a corporate person, recognizes that compatibility between job content under public sector in comparison with the private sector requires a degree of compatibility of salary structure too.
However, due to the change of circumstances in the financial state of the public servant during the last few decades, a constant cribbing and bickering took place and in order to make amends of a sort, illegal and totally un-warranted perks and privileges were assumed to be legal and then grabbed by the state employee, which quickly became as legal as the law itself.
This pertained to gross misuse of official transport, accommodation, garnering of retainers and servants from amongst the so-called Class IV employees, (in the absence thereof, keeping of daily wagers, contingent and work charged employees booked to totally un-connected or even bogus works/ heads as personal servants/ orderlies etc.), the booking of utility bills to official account- through the most unique of the contraption like camp offices setup at official residences etc., the receipt of commissions through bad and flawed contracting and purchase, nepotism and favourtism in recruitments, promotions and postings and nomination for trainings- in and outside the country.
All this, incidentally, has been besides the taking of bribes and grafts- mercifully still thought to be wrong by quite a few. As a consequence, we see that the few perks allowed by the government to a very small number of senior officers are firstly bloated and increased to an un-imaginable level and thereafter also adopted by others, who primarily are not entitled to the same.
As this illegal accumulation could not be across the board and also remained tilted in favour of the seniors and the near seniors, the comparatively junior and those whose authority did not stretch much got compensated through moon-lighting and being away from their duties as much as possible.
All this has led to a great reduction in the efficiency of the public sector or what is generally billed as the government and also to a perception that all the above is lawful.
It all has resulted in a chasm between the lower and the upper hierarchies of the government. It has also led to the constant in-fighting between the selected and the elected parts of the government.
Recently a minister and the secretary of the department concerned had a row over division of official transport and in the end the minister could only keep one car while the good secretary still enjoys a fleet- all which is considered as a part of due perks and privileges.
Actually, it is a routine to buffet the lone staff car allowed to grade 20 and above officers with a bevy of others separately catering for the Begum and each child (an ample exhortation for the people to ensure that senior government officers do not have more than one child).
The situation is so alarming that the last head of a Utility, supposedly disciplined to the core being from the Army, was reportedly misusing as many as 14 vehicles. He also at one time maintained three residences at government expense viz. one from his parent organization, the second being the official residence of the Utility at a premier location in Lahore and the third through conversion of the departmental rest house at Karachi, necessitated by the first son's transfer there.
And to make the matter even worse, the gentleman had the Utility cough out the Rs1.4 million standard rent which the Army charged at the gentleman's retirement. All this is, incidentally, a routine and something very normal.
Coming back to the formation of the 17-member Pay and Pension Committee 2004, we see that it comprises of the federal secretaries of finance, establishment and defence divisions, the finance secretaries of the four provinces, special secretary military finance, member CBR, representatives each from the AGP and the Controller General of Accounts, the Military Accountant General, the senior Joint Secretary regulations of the finance division, the Chairman of the PTCL, the President HBL and the secretary finance AJK as an observer.
This Committee is planned to be headed by Mr. Moeen Afzal former finance secretary general of the GoP and present chairman of the Union Bank. The Committee, under its terms of reference, will evaluate the existing salary structure and compensatory allowances and then assess the need of any revision keeping in view the market conditions and affordability of the country.
The Committee is also required to analyze job content under the public sector in comparison with the private one and thereafter suggest a degree of compatibility of their salary structures.
The scope of the work of the Committee will include federal and provincial civil servants as well as civilians paid from defense estimates, all armed forces, civil armed forces personnel and holders of the posts in management scales and employees of such public sector corporations, autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies, other than banks and DFIs which have adopted the scheme of basic pay scales in toto.
It is a long and arduous task with the affordability part surely making the Committee a non-starter. However, the requirement that the Committee may also make recommendations on the possibility of monetizing the perks and facilities etc. is worth consideration.
This beings so, because experts opine that monetizing alone would net billions for the national exchequer in direct savings besides many other intrinsic benefits like a stoppage to the current misuse.
So as to explain, we see that monetization is the payment of cost of official perks to the public servant as per entitlement instead of actual and physical availability of the same in addition to the pay and allowances paid each month. And it would only be allowed/ paid to those who are entitled. Which is only 5-10 per cent of the total employees.
In order to gauge the extent of potential savings through monetization of perks etc., we need to look into the level of current expenditures being made under the head of pay and allowances inclusive of the outlays for transport, maintenance of GORs and their official residences by the GoP and, as a case study, by the province of Punjab.
Scrutiny reveals that the GoP expended an astronomical figure of Rs448.5 billion on general public services during Fy 2003-04 against the budgeted figure of Rs378 billion, where as it plans to reduce the same up to Rs424 billion for the current financial year.
We also see that an additional Rs 277 billion is also envisaged to be spent on defence, public order and safety affairs, economic affairs, environmental protection, housing and community amenities, health affairs and service, re-creational expenditures including those on culture and religion, educational affairs and services and social protection.
Out of this figure as much as 50 per cent is spent on pays and allowances for employees, while up to 25 per cent is earmarked for such activities as the running of the government- which make up expenditures on transport, maintenance of official residences etc. Out of the later, at least 50 per cent is considered lost due to misuse already explained in the aforementioned paras.
As the level of each of the services is clear with no doubts at all that the whole expenditure just sustains the public servant and nothing else, one can safely assume that a large part is indeed in the use of this special person and remains the head which, if looked into critically, can yield immense savings.
Some experts are of the opinion that monetization of the perks and doing away of the official residences, conveyance and transport, ensuring that no one from amongst the lesser of the employees is misused or put to use for any work other than the official one and stringent checks against misuse of public properties etc., would yield a saving which may equal at least 25 per cent of the current expenditures. This may be a little too optimistic, but even half or quarter of it would be a saving of Rs29.68 billion to Rs14.84 billion respectively.
Another important issue is the present doling out of plots and agricultural land specifically to the military personal and the DHA's and the Co-op societies in existence under various departments.
Ostensibly, these have been setup to arrange for a decent living for the public servant after retirement, but in fact have become pure business prepositions and also a source of immense corruption.
Another very disastrous off-shoot is the creation of barricaded residential enclaves sticking out like sore thumbs for all to see. Besides being obnoxiously elitist in demeanour, it all also creates a divide in the public mind and surely reeks of the old colonial times.
It all makes the civil society poorer as earlier on, when these estates were not in existence, the retiring civil and military officers- the juniors still mingle with their non-governmental compatriots, would settle in their villages and mohallas or at the most in the satellite towns created in nearly all big towns after independence. But because the civil and military employees have to be rewarded for their service to the nation, the present allotment of urban plots and the agricultural lands also needs to be monetized instead.
As a consequence, the retiring (not a day before) employee would be given a purse- the size of which may depend upon the merit of service or the sacrifice made for the country.
This type of reward would firstly be appropriate thus recognizing the services and secondly would lead the retiring official (and not officers alone) to spend/ invest his purse in the area of his original domicile instead of for the creation of exclusive enclaves in the bigger of the metropolises of Pakistan.
On the other hand, the housing projects should primarily be designed and setup by the civic authorities and the housing departments alone with a proportionate number of units kept for the government employee- as was the practice of the earlier times and the allotted plots hereafter should be non-transferable for at least twenty years and necessarily the allotees would have to build houses on them within a maximum period of two to five years.
The benefits of such a scheme of things are obvious in the shape of the end to the stoppage of un-necessary intermingling of the governmental and the civil counterpart and an end to elitist and exclusionary way of doing things. Additionally, we would see that it would also put a stop to the present doling out of state assets at throw away prices to the chosen few.
It would result in actual good governance, which presently seems to be a dream. It all would also make the public servant more responsive to the needs of the public. He would understand that he is a part and parcel of the citizenry and not the successor to the colonial.
Besides, the monetization of perks would spare vast amounts for the government to spend upon other important facets like poverty elevation and the building up of imperative infra structure.
