The government is eerily unmoved over a pen-down strike by Economists Group officers for being deprived of executive allowance in contravention of an earlier cabinet decision.
By Muhammad Ali
ISLAMABAD: A pen-down strike called by some 600 officers of the Economists Group of the federal bureaucracy over being denied executive allowance has continued for more than 10 days now, without eliciting any corrective action from the government.
This is bizarre to say the least because it was the incumbent government’s own decision to grant a 150 percent executive allowance to all federal public servants of BS-17 and above working in the Federal Secretariat.
A federal cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif approved the decision on June 10, 2022, and it became part of the federal budget for the current fiscal drawn up by former Finance Minister Miftah Ismail.
However, the implementation of the decision has left a lot to be desired. The protesting public servants say the grant of executive allowance has been implemented for the powerful DMG and Secretariat groups, leaving all others high and dry.
The aggrieved officers belong to Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Information & Broadcasting in addition to the economic ministries. They point out that the selective rollout of the allowance is not only in contravention to the original cabinet decision but also discriminatory and unconstitutional.
In the last federal cabinet meeting, Minister for Foreign Affairs Bilawal Bhutto Zardari took up the issue to the extent of the officers belonging to het Foreign Service Group and stated that he stood with the officers of his ministry.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif responded by stating that he would not endorse discrimination. He sought a report from his principal secretary.
Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal seemed to champion the cause of the deprived civil servants for a while when Miftah Ismail was still the finance minister.
In an interactive session with the officers of Economists Group and technical sections of his ministry on September 27, 2022, he listened to the problems and grievances of the officers patiently.
The minister was apprised that during current fiscal year, the officers of the Ministry were able to save the exchequer some PKR 133 billion by rationalising the cost of development projects. In comparison, the cost implication of granting them the executive allowance stood at a mere PKR 189 million.
Ahsan Iqbal had agreed that the officers of his Ministry were fully entitled to the executive allowance, promising to take up the matter with the finance minister. He then wrote a letter to Finance Minister Ismail, advocating the cause of the deprived officers.
But officers are very angry that he seems to have changed tack since, issuing threats that he would seek workforce from the Establishment Division on much lower salaries.
This scribe visited the site of the protest by the aggrieved officers at Pak Secretariat, who said they are on a pen-down strike after waiting in vain for almost six months. They lamented that everyone in the government made hollow promises but failed to fulfil their commitments.
In a joint resolution, the officers demanded of Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar that the federal cabinet approved the grant of executive allowance to all officers of BS-17 and above working in the Federal Secretariat vide its decision of June 10, 2022.
However, the Finance Division implemented the cabinet decision partially and granted EA to only specific groups. Resultantly, the aggrieved officers in every ministry and division started agitation at the ministry level.
In response, secretary and minister of each ministry wrote to PM Sharif, Minister for Finance, and Secretary Finance to extend the executive allowance to the deprived officers working in the Federal Secretariat.
But no such relief has been extended to the aggrieved officers to date which resulted in severe frustration among the aggrieved officers. This is a clear-cut violation of Article 4, 25, and 38(c) of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
The aggrieved officers of various ministries and divisions have now joined hands for a pen-down strike to register peaceful protest against the administration for its failure to implement the federal cabinet decision.
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