Govt: Employees & Discrimination

[zaheer.sahito]

My comments published in today's Dawn, i.e the 10th of April, 2015
LATELY election allowance at the rate of 20pc of basic pays of employees of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has been withdrawn by the federal government.

A petition at the Peshawar High Court has been filed against the cut in the election allowance by many aggrieved officials in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and similar petitions are likely to be filed in other provinces by ECP employees.

Whatever the outcome of these petitions, it is basically not the small salaries or the withdrawal of election allowance that irks the employees at the ECP or elsewhere; instead it is the difference of pays and privileges in different services of the state that begets sense of inferiority and disgruntlement, and results into elimination of job enthusiasm and honesty.

One of the civil services departments is offered 100pc of their basic pays as ‘performance allowance’ in addition to their regular monthly salaries. It is here that the government fails to realise that every public entity or department is working for the state of Pakistan, remaining in its lawful ambit, and should be treated equally in terms of their social and financial well-being.

Does the government want to make us believe that the difference of wages is because some services of the state are more pious and worthier than the others?

Similarly, employees of a few government departments on their retirement are rewarded with a residential plot, worth millions of rupees, in Islamabad and Karachi, besides their regular pension. This special favour is not for employees of the ECP or postal services.

This unjust distribution of monetary assistance is enough to create a sense of inferiority in thousands of employees elsewhere, and institutional corruption is the result.

As far wages are concerned, our judiciary is the only working class which tops all others. A BPS-18 officer in the judiciary draws at least three times more than a BPS-18 officer at any civil services department.

Isn’t the federal government blatantly violating Article 38(e) of the Constitution which says: “The state shall reduce disparity in income and earnings of individuals, including persons in the various classes of service of Pakistan.”

Sahito Zaheer
Election Officer
Khairpur