PESHAWAR: All employees of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly will get ‘honorarium’ equal to one-month basic salary on the ‘successful completion’ of the tenure of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led coalition government.

The assembly’s finance committee headed by Speaker Asad Qaisar has set a precedent in the parliamentary history of the province. The assembly employees are paid honorarium on the occasion of the passage of the annual budget for their extra work like the finance department’s employees.

The committee, which met on March 14, had unanimously approved honorarium to be paid to the entire staff of the assembly secretariat, according to official documents.

Initiative to cost exchequer over Rs17 million

The assembly is going to complete its five years tenure on May 28.

“The honourable speaker was recalled the commitment he had already made for announcement of honorarium equal to one month basic pay to all employees of the provincial assembly on successful completion of the government tenure. The speaker was pleased to place it to the committee for consideration and approval,” said the documents.

The finance committee’s decision will cost the exchequer over Rs17 million, said an official in the finance section of the assembly secretariat. It will benefit around 600 employees of the assembly including secretary and other senior officials. The official said that the honorarium had not been paid to the staff, so far.

Former speaker of the provincial assembly Kiramatullah Khan Chagharmati said the honorarium was paid to the staff after the approval of the annual budget by the house.

“I have never seen such payment on the completion of the government’s tenure,” he said.

Speaker Asad Qaisar told Dawn that it was the unanimous decision of the finance committee and that he could not veto it.

“It was the committee’s decision and I did not give approval to it in my personal capacity,” he said.

The speaker admitted that the assembly’s staff members had already received honorarium on the occasion of the annual budgets.

According to the documents, the finance committee also approved the upgradation of the special secretary/director (information technology) from BPS-20 (personnel) to BPS-21 (personnel).

Sources in the secretariat claimed that the Provincial Assembly Secretariat Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Employees Upgradation Policy, 2011, had been violated in the promotion of the incumbent special secretary.

They said according to the existing policy, the upgradation should be made once during the whole service period of the relevant employee, but the sitting special secretary was given special favour.

“No such upgradation shall be made in favour of such employees, whose posts have once been ‘personally’ upgraded either before or after the promulgation of this policy,” said an official while quoting Part-I of the policy.

He said the policy also stated that there shall be no relaxation in the upgradation policy, 2011.

“This is a sheer violation of the policy,” he said.

Speaker Asad Qaisar insisted that the committee gave upgradation to the special secretary from BPS-20 (personnel) to BPS-21 (personnel) in light of the recommendations of the subcommittee.

He said the finance committee was a constitutional body, which framed recommendations through the subcommittee in Nov 2015.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2018