PPP Senator Mian Raza Rabbani on Thursday “strongly condemned” the interim government’s decision to increase the salaries and perks of top bureaucrats and said that it should be “withdrawn immediately”.

The caretaker government has increased salaries and perks of top bureaucrats in management positions — commonly described as management position (MP) scales — by a flat 45 per cent with effect from Oct 1.

The increase would apply to all MP-I, MP-II and MP-III positions, including basic salaries, house rents and utilities as approved by the caretaker prime minister, the Ministry of Finance said in a notification. These officers, distinct from career bureaucrats, are typically drawn from the private sector due to their expertise in relevant fields.

In a press release issued on Thursday, Rabbani said that the country was in the grip of a “severe economic crunch” and there was a need to reduce government expenditure.

He said that the salaries and the house rent and utility charges of the bureaucrats had also been increased.

“The common man can not have two meals a day, is forced to remove his children from school and has to take loan to pay the utility bills [while] the elite is adding cream to its cake,” he said.

He said that if the government had surplus funds, it could increase the salaries of employees of Grade 1 to 15. He further said that the government had claimed to not have funds for Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) yet they were available to increase the salaries of bureaucrats in management positions.

“Such steps of the caretaker government are increasing the class difference between the common man and the ruling elite,” he said, adding that such a move went beyond the ambit of the interim set-up.

“The law and judgements of the superior courts restrict them to looking after day-to-day affairs rather than adding to [the] burden of the national expenditure” he said.

“This salary increase should be withdrawn immediately,” it added.

Increase in salaries and perks

The finance ministry said the monthly remuneration of officers on the MP-I scale used to begin from Rs554,600, including basic salaries, house rent and utilities with a terminal amount of Rs699,250 per month. The minimum and maximum remunerations would now be Rs804,180 and Rs1,013,920 per month, respectively.

The officers in this grade would also be drawing Rs95,910 per month for transport monetisation allowance, taking the revised monthly package to between Rs900,090 and Rs1,109,830.

Likewise, the minimum and maximum monthly package of MP-II scales was Rs255,750 and Rs413,600 per month. This will now range from Rs370,850 to Rs599,740. The monthly monetisation allowance for this scale will be Rs77,430.

The officers in the MP-III grade used to get Rs165,855 to Rs233,750 per month. The amount has now been revised to Rs240,460 and Rs338,960, apart from a monetisation allowance of Rs65,060.

The relevant ministries and divisions have been asked to meet the expenditure arising out of these revisions from their allocated budget for the current fiscal year. The pay of each officer will be fixed at the corresponding stage in the revised MP scale at which they were drawing pay before the revision.

While the revised package automatically benefits officers in MP scales, contract extensions for current MP scale-holders depend on satisfactory performance reviews by the evaluation committee and approval by relevant authorities.

In addition, travel and daily allowances during domestic and international visits of MP-I scales would be equivalent to civil servants of the highest grade, while those in MP-II and MP-III would be treated on a par with civil servant grades in BPS-21 and 20, respectively.

Moreover, all MP officers would be allowed reimbursement of medical and hospitalisation charges for the officer, spouse and children for treatment at government-recognised institutions in the country. Besides, all these officers would be entitled to one month’s basic pay for each completed year of service.

An officer said the remunerations for MP officers were last revised in July 2017, but their basic salaries had been even year at the rate of Rs33,000 per month for MP-I, Rs27,225 for MP-II and Rs18,150 for MP-III.