PESHAWAR, June 10: Public sector employees are of the view that the federal and provincial governments should control prices of essential items instead of raising salaries which, they believe, will be rendered meaningless within a few months because of the rising inflation.

Provincial public sector employees, when contacted separately, told this reporter that they would prefer stringent measures on the part of the federal and provincial governments to bring down prices of items of daily use over ‘insufficient’ pay raise.

While the federal government’s decision of increasing salaries has been welcomed by the beneficiaries, it attracted lukewarm response from the public sector employees due to the growing apprehensions among them that the pay raise would subside because of the rising prices of essential goods.

A grade-14 employee of the NWFP finance department said that the government should try to control the prices. “Even if salary is not increased and prices are brought down to a reasonable level, I think it will do more good to the salaried class,” said the employee.

Identical views were expressed by an officer of the armed forces who said that the price hike and growing rate of inflation had undermined his capacity to incur saving at the end of every month. “Now I can’t save any thing because our kitchen budget has increased tremendously,” said the officer.

A well-placed finance manager said the pay raise did not lend positive impact due to the government’s decision of substantially increasing the house and transport allowances. “I live in an officially allotted accommodation and have been provided a car, hence, I am not eligible to the benefit announced by the federal government as a result my salary would undergo upward revision by about Rs1,400 per month,” said the officer.

“Had I been a grade-20 officer I would have appreciated the government’s decision because that would have given me a pay raise of about Rs5,000 but as I work in grade-16 therefore the additional amount I will get will subside in three to four months amidst growing inflation,” said an officer of the provincial government department.

A development planner said that the pay raise would not help the employees much in view of the federal government’s own figures of 11 per cent inflation rate.

“If the inflation rate is 11 per cent and the salary has been increased by 15 per cent it means that the difference between the two would subside in the next two to three months if the rate of inflation continues to grow,” said the officer.

While public sector employees appear to be ‘not impressed’ by the pay raise, the federal government’s decision would lead the NWFP government to experience an increase by Rs4 billion to Rs5 billion under the head of salary during the 2005-06 financial year.

The province, according to official sources, saw its expenditure on account of staff salaries growing by Rs2.5 billion during the 2004-05 financial year because of the 15 per cent pay raise effected by the federal government in July last. “The fresh pay raise would take the expenditure under this vital head to an all time high Rs27 billion to Rs28 billion during the upcoming new financial year widening the gap between the provincial government’s revenue receipts and rising expenditure,” said a finance manager.