PESHAWAR: WB urges NWFP to create special cadres for staff
By Mohammad Ali Khan
PESHAWAR, Feb 14: The World Bank has asked the NWFP government to create special cadres for employees of district and tehsil level departments by December.
Being one of the conditions, restructuring of civil services would enable the cash-strapped NWFP government to get a $130 million loan Development Policy Credit from the bank by next financial year, official sources told Dawn.
The NWFP government had approached the World Bank to arrange maximum resources for financing the second phase of its multi-sector Provincial Reforms Programme (PRP-II).
To implement reforms under the governance and civil services component of the PRP-II, the sources said the provincial government had to get a policy of restructuring civil services approved from the provincial cabinet. This policy would include new structure of provincial and district services, appointment of staff and their job descriptions.
Likewise, the government was required to increase average tenure period of provincial secretary and other posts from Grade 19 to 21 up to 20 and 24 months, respectively. The government would be required to place such information on the official website, the sources maintained.
Devising a strategy for migration and capacity-building of employees and formulating rules and regulations for new district and tehsil service cadres by the end of this year were some of the other conditions set by the World Bank under the component, the sources said.
They said the provincial government had taken certain steps to meet the World Bank conditions within the given time, but it had objected to the service structure of the district cadre as prescribed by the lending agency.
The district cadre as advised by the lending agency includes staff positions from basic pay scale 1 to 20, similar to recommendations of the National Reconstruction Bureau, whereas the provincial government wants to cover only posts from grade 1 to 15 in the new district cadre, the sources said.
The government, said the sources, argued that only one post of grade 20 existed in the district setup which was of district coordination officer and its inclusion in the district cadre would create certain anomalies.
The sources said the DCO post could not be filled through promotions or fresh appointments and it would also affect the performance of the senior bureaucracy owing to restriction on vertical and horizontal transfers and postings.
Having such reservations over the proposed district cadre, the sources said, the provincial government would try to convince the lending agency to relax the conditionalities to this end, as an appraisal mission of the bank was expected to visit the provincial capital by next month.
The government had formed a committee to prepare district cadre from pay scale 1 to 15 so it could meet the targets, enabling the provincial setup to acquire the credit facility from the World Bank within the specified time.
The government claims to have devolved the administrative control of 187,637 employees from grade 1 to 15 to districts by delegating powers of their transfer, posting and promotion.
However, actually only three provincial departments school and literacy, health and works and services departments had devolved such administrative control to districts so far, the sources added.
