PESHAWAR, Dec 1: The NWFP government would appoint around 4500 teachers during the current financial year and gave up its earlier plan to recruit 9000 teachers during the same period, according to well-placed official sources.
“The provincial government has changed its mind due to financial implications involved in appointing such a large number of teachers,” said a senior government functionary.
According to official sources, the provincial government gave up its plan to appoint such a large number of teachers in view of reservations expressed by the World Bank which is financing the NWFP’s three year roll-over Provincial Reforms Programme (PRP) launched in the 2002-03 financial year.
“The government had to surrender before the World Bank which was against making such a large number of appointments due to negative impact the move was likely to lend to the provincial kitty,” said a source in one of the departments concerned of the province.
Even Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani and Finance Minister Sirajul Haq failed to allay donor agency’s reservations in their separate meetings, held last July, with the World Bank’s wrap-up mission.
The provincial government had also made public its decision to lift the ban from the fresh recruitment — imposed about a decade ago to control the establishment size in the provincial public sector.
At the time of presenting provincial budget on June 16, last, the minister for finance, planning and development Sirajul Haq had announced that 9873 new posts would be created to improve social services particularly in the health and education sectors.
Around 9000 posts were to be created for the teaching cadre in line with the provincial government’s move to bring down student-to-teacher ratio to a reasonable level, said an officer requesting anonymity.
However, added the sources, the provincial government had to change its plan after the lending agency kept on insisting it to avoid making such a large number of appointments on the pretext that doing so would undermine the province’s efforts to control its establishment cost, particularly the annual wage bill.
The NWFP’s total annual wage bill comes to around Rs17.3 billion — other than the amount the government pays in pension to its retired employees.
The annual wage bill accounts for about 50 per cent of the total annual revenue receipts the province is expected to receive at the close of the current fiscal year and is bound to eat up around Rs2.5 billion more than the last financial year due to 15 per cent pay raise the provincial government effected during the current financial year in line with a decision of the federal government.
“After failing to convince the donor agency, the government has finally decided in the recent past to slash, by half, the number of teachers it wanted to appoint during the current fiscal year,” said an official.
According to an other credible source, the exact number of teachers to be appointed afresh during the current fiscal year would stand somewhere between 2500 and 3000 out of the total about 4500 the government intends to recruit in accordance with its revised plan.
“Some 1500 posts would be filled in by the provincial government’s as many employees at presently kept in the pool of surplus employees,” said a source close to the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal-led NWFP government. The finance department, NWFP, has also issued instructions to the authorities concerned for about 3000 fresh appointments.
In this respect, a district-wise list has also been finalised and circulated among the authorities concerned.
“At last, the provincial government gave in to the lending agency’s pressure,” said an officer, adding that “they (the MMA government) was not listening when the development planners of the province tried to stop them from chalking out a plan to make such a large number of appointments.”