Drastic measures in belt-tightening blueprint
The government may soon abolish regulatory bodies of the devolved subjects, particularly health and education, do away with transport facilities for all the federal ministries and divisions, phase out non-executive staff at the Centre and merge aviation and maritime divisions with the defence ministry as part of an upcoming restructuring and austerity drive.
The government has been under criticism over a tough federal budget and higher energy costs in its attempt to secure a $7 billion economic bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) without effective and matching expenditure control of the public sector.
The legislative process is expected to begin this month as some readjustments would require enabling changes to federal and provincial laws and a new division “Social Sector Affairs” would be created.
Back-to-back and overlapping committees have been working over the past months under the prime minister’s directives to come up with austerity measures. Many of these measures are expected to become part of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) of the IMF and associated public sector restructuring programme of the World Bank.
A senior government official told Dawn that the final shape of the first phase of austerity and restructuring would be formally announced by the prime minister himself with the approval of the cabinet. He, however, added it was now almost clear that various regulatory councils of the subjects devolved under the 18th Amendment would have no place at the Centre.
This means the role, staff, and assets, including buildings of regulatory councils like the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, the Federal Pharmacy Council and the Higher Education Commission etc. would stand fully transferred to the provinces. Some provinces already had similar organisations up and running and federal financing to them would come to an end with effect from the next fiscal year.
The provincial governments would not only finance these regulators but also organisations, attached departments, and universities and professional colleges falling in their jurisdiction. The federal universities and hospitals would then be run by corporate boards in the private sector on a Public-Private Partnership model for profitability and linkage to the market on the pattern of the United States, instead of the existing structure of senates and syndicates.
There would be a complete ban on the appointment of staff to federal universities and hospitals except for academic staff that would be hired on a lump sum remuneration package without any future liability on the federal exchequer
In addition, there would be a freeze on recruitment of in grade 1-16 employees, i.e. support staff, across the federal government and gradually such posts would be abolished at the time of their vacancy. The officer cadre would be required to embrace artificial intelligence and digital tools instead of their heavy reliance on the support staff. The staff of devolved ministries and their related paraphernalia would be transferred to the surplus pool with an option for their transfer to the provinces or vacant seats in other organisations.
The sources said that except for a few operational organisations, like the National Highway and Motorway Police, the transport facility for the federal ministries and divisions would be abolished. However, the scope of transport monetisation would be expanded as it had been established through various studies that almost all officers in the federal ministries were massively misusing the transport facility.
The top tier was not only drawing hefty transport allowance every month but also using official transport. The corporate entities would also be guided towards similar lines. They would, however, be allowed a skeleton pool of passenger vehicles instead of luxury cars etc. Also, rental claims would be allowed for the purposes of delegations.