By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered officials to speed up the elimination of redundant government posts, pressing ahead with a downsizing drive that has already shuttered three state bodies as Pakistan seeks to narrow its fiscal deficit and unlock the next tranche of International Monetary Fund support.
Sharif chaired a review meeting in Islamabad on Tuesday to assess progress on the federal government’s rightsizing program, according to a statement from his office. He directed the Rightsizing Committee overseeing the initiative to complete its remaining recommendations within a month and called for a third-party audit of all posts and institutions abolished so far.
“Eliminating unnecessary posts and positions is an important component of the government’s reform agenda,” Sharif said, according to the statement. He said the pace of implementation needed to quicken to lift the performance and efficiency of state institutions, and called for wider use of technology and improved staff training.
The government has closed the Utility Stores Corporation, the Pakistan Public Works Department and the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation under the program, generating savings for the national exchequer, the PMO said. Vacant positions across various ministries have also been scrapped.
The rightsizing drive is part of broader efforts by Sharif’s government to shrink one of South Asia’s largest public payrolls and rein in a wage and pension bill that has strained the budget for years. Officials briefing the meeting said the measures have already reduced the ratio of federal civilian government spending to gross domestic product, without giving specific figures.
Pakistan has leaned on the IMF for repeated bailouts over the past decade, with the lender pushing Islamabad to shrink the footprint of the state and overhaul loss-making enterprises as conditions for support. The South Asian nation is currently working through a $7 billion Extended Fund Facility approved last year.
Islamabad has also pressed ahead with privatization as a companion track to the job cuts. The government has completed the sale of Pakistan International Airlines and First Women Bank Ltd., and is preparing additional divestments across state-owned enterprises, the PMO said. Proposals for rightsizing autonomous bodies and other state enterprises are being finalized.
The meeting was attended by Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik, Privatization Adviser Muhammad Ali, and Minister of State for Finance Bilal Azhar Kayani, among other senior officials.
Sharif’s government has staked significant political capital on demonstrating fiscal discipline as it seeks to stabilize an economy that narrowly avoided default in 2023. Reducing the size of the civil service and offloading loss-making state enterprises have featured prominently in the government’s talks with the IMF, though previous Pakistani administrations have struggled to follow through on similar pledges amid resistance from labor unions and bureaucratic inertia.
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