The Prime Minister By Shahbaz Sharif Federal Government I have formed a committee under the chairmanship of Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb regarding the issues of ‘Right Sizing’. In the first phase, five ministries have been entrusted with the responsibility of right-sizing.
On what is ‘right sizing’, and how to do it, detailed meetings of all the five ministries are going on in the committee, in which it is being discussed whether the federal ministry is justified in carrying out the duties in the respective sectors or this ministry should be transferred to the provinces. be moved or closed altogether.
It was announced to form this committee on June 14, which will prepare its report after taking a briefing from the concerned ministries.
The five ministries include IT and Telecom, Industry and Production, Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan Affairs, Safran and National Health Services. Right-sizing will be done in the first phase in connection with the institutional reforms of five ministries.
All the five federal ministries have started meeting from July 12 to answer the questions, the last meeting in this regard will be held on August 9.
The Institutional Reforms Cell of the Cabinet Division had sent a preforma to the ministries on July 5 seeking information about the division, how many wings and subsidiaries the division has, what is the administrative structure, how much is the budget and staff, rules of business. What are the duties of the division according to the federal legal list, what are the duties of the federation and the provinces, what is the justification for the establishment of the division?
According to the notification, the Institutional Reforms Cell of the Cabinet will prepare recommendations for the Prime Minister after analyzing the information received from the Ministries, while the Right Sizing Committee will submit its final analysis on the recommendations of the Institutional Reforms Cell. The Cabinet Division has asked the concerned Ministries that the information to be sent should be verified by the Secretary and the Minister.
Other members of the Right Sizing Committee headed by the Finance Minister include the Minister of Planning, Minister of Economic Affairs, Power Division, Establishment Division and Secretaries of the Cabinet Division, Mr. Bilal Azhar Kayani, Dr. Qaiser Bengali and Dr. Farrukh Saleem.
Right sizing time requirement
Right-sizing or down-sizing of ministries, its effects will be negative or positive? Independent Urdu has discussed with various experts in this regard.
Dr. Sajid Amin SDPI said that if seen as a policy, the federal government needs to do a lot of right-sizing. The unnecessary ministries or similar institutions should be abolished. Any country with too many identical departments or ministries is a sign of bad governance. The government should have taken this step long ago.
He said, ‘We should not only look at it from the point of view of saving money, but we also have to look at it administratively. If the same work is being done by six departments, if they are similar, they need to be merged and those that are redundant, eliminate them. Things have to improve over time.’
Regarding the employees, he said that ‘It happens all over the world that in case of closure of the organization, a golden shake hand is also given. While some employees will be given place in other ministries.
“So I think this is the right step in the right direction,” he added. It is very important to save unnecessary expenses. Abolition of unnecessary ministries will also improve administrative matters.’
Expenditures and their rate of growth have to be curbed
Economist Khaqan Najeeb said that it is very important for Pakistan to reform its fiscal framework to make its fiscal framework work. This means not only reducing costs but curbing their rate of growth altogether.’
He said that under the 18th amendment, there are 17 ministries that were handed over to the provinces, right-sizing of five ministries is being done in the first phase.
Khaqan Najib added that ‘it is not enough to transfer the expenses of the ministries, but the development fund should also be given to the provinces to end poverty.’
The key reason for right-sizing was the IMF’s assurance of cost-cutting
Shakeel Ahmed, a senior journalist on economic affairs, said that the main purpose of this exercise is to reduce the burden on the government. There are around 38 ministries and departments on which the development fund has to be spent, so the government decided to right-size five ministries in the first phase.
IMF Mission Chief for Pakistan Nathan Porter and Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb with their teams on the occasion of the second review of the Standby Arrangement in Islamabad on April 14, 2024 (APP).
The reason is that the federal government has 23 such institutions that have incurred losses of 905 billion rupees, including electricity distribution companies, their employees also spend money in the form of salaries and in the case of retirement. Pension too.
The IMF has also been assured that unnecessary expenditure will be cut. The final decision regarding these five ministries will be taken in the month of August. If this model is successful, in the next phase more ministries and departments will also come. Now there are 17 more ministries and 84 departments that can be right-sizing.
What will be the future of employees of five ministries?
Regarding what will be the future of the employees of the ministries to be abolished, various proposals have come out in the meetings held so far.
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According to the information available to Independent Urdu, the golden handshake package may be given to the employees nearing retirement, apart from this, the employees of the defunct ministries will also be integrated into other ministries. Apart from this, the proposal to include the affected employees of the ministries in the surplus pool is also under consideration.
Syed Ahmar Ali, a member of the Federal Employees Association, while talking to Independent Urdu, said that ‘Ministry has already been merged, these employees are placed in other ministries in the same rank, sometimes they are asked which ministries they want to go to. If there are, then they are appointed in the same way. This is not such a big issue. If the problem becomes more, the employees can also adopt the method of protest.
He added, ‘How can you give a golden handshake to someone who was appointed two years ago? If someone who is close to retirement wants to continue working and doesn’t want to take the golden handshake, it will be the employee’s own decision.
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2024-08-09 05:14:20