Announcing a judgment in a case, a three member bench of Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial ruled that wage structure ought to be crafted in a way that must provide not merely for bare subsistence of life but also to ensure sincere productivity and proficiency of employee taking into account variation in the cost of living.
We believe had this formula been adopted in real sense, the performance of our public sector departments would have been far better and up to the expectations of masses.
Unfortunately at present this is not the case rather a disparity exists in salaries of different departments and that has made the situation more precarious.
Most recently, government approved an executive allowance of 150 percent for employees of BPS 17 to BPS 22 yet irony is that it is being disbursed only to employees of some select and powerful departments while others have been deprived of it.
Even minimum wage fixed by government is not applicable in many departments. Then there are some departments that are even finding it difficult to even pay salaries to their employees while some have abundant resources to disburse exorbitant salaries.
This is only resulting in heart burning of employees and their performance. Such a situation is neither acceptable nor sustainable.
Previous government of PTI had constituted a pay and pension commission to come up with a uniform pay package but regardless of passage of so much time, it is yet to conclude its recommendations.
We will ask present government to take guidance from Supreme Court’s ruling on wage structure, as this will also go a long way in improving good governance.
We understand that some state owned enterprises have become a burden on national exchequer but responsibility rests with government to revive them either through total privatisation or through public private partnership. There should be no politics on it.
