Daily Times

LAHORE: The excessive, discriminatory and beyond market based standards salaries being paid to the staff of Chief Minister’s Strategic Reforms Unit (SRU) has become a point of discussion and distress for the other government employees of Punjab as the salaries of SRU do not match the government pay scales set for contractual or regular employee, reliable sources informed Daily Times.

The staff working at SRU is contractual and fresh graduates who are being paid more than the experienced and senior officers in other government departments of Punjab, sources added and said that gender discrimination has also been observed in SRU as most of the officers are females and there are very few males who are less paid than the female staff. The sources also said that if the staff of SRU is on contractual employment then the same salary package should apply to other contractual employees of the government of Punjab.

The sources added that the salary of SRU Director General Salman Sufi was Rs 1.2 million per month and tax of Rs 303,500 was deducted from his salary and he was drawing Rs 896,500 since last one year and four months, whereas an SRU officer Hafsa Rahman’s salary was Rs 300,000 per month, with tax deduction of Rs 45,182 and was getting Rs 254,818 since three years and 10 months. Sources further said that the salary of SRU Analytical Assistant Rida Shahzad was Rs 200,000 with tax deduction of Rs 21,959 and was drawing Rs 178,041 since last one year whereas another junior associate of SRU Fatima Khan’s salary was Rs 125,000 with tax deduction of Rs 8,363 and take home salary was Rs 116,637 since last one year four months. Sources said that SRU Resident Associate Maryam Noor was drawing 80,000 with no tax deduction since the last four months whereas a male office assistant Usman Hameed was drawing only Rs 30,000 with no tax deduction since the last two years.

The sources added that such high salaries were alarming for the government sector employees who were working on tough and risky projects with extra hours of working and a few off days only. The sources complained that the money collected from the taxes being paid by the citizens was used in an unjustified manner by raising the salaries of the favourite ones among the government servants who had no productivity for the public as only a few projects were launched by the SRU and most of them were incomplete so far. Sources added that SRU was responsible for women centric reforms which included violence against women centres, women protection authority, women-on-wheels, street theatre campaign and a women safety smart phone application and out of all these tasks, only the Women on Wheels project was seen by the public whereas only one Violence Against Women Centre was so far established in Multan.

The rest of the projects were either partially implemented or still under process of legislation drafting. Sources further added that SRU under social reforms was unable to promote the Shehr-e-Khamoshan Project effectively whereas the container libraries, legislation for the rights of senior citizens and restaurants grading system still were under process, and said that most of the responsibilities of SRU were “half cooked” and the public had no information of them as SRU also had the responsibilities to introduce police reforms, traffic, motor and transport reforms.

Sources were of the opinion that already different government departments and authorities were doing similar work and instead of their capacity building, a new unit of SRU was established which has raised questions on the eligibility, efficiency, seniority and working of those departments and authorities.

A director of a government department, working on contract, commented that his salary after a service of five years was raised to Rs 125,000 whereas his deputy director’s with service of five years’ salary was Rs 78,000 and assistant director’s with service of four years was Rs 55,000.

Advocate Azhar Siddique while commenting on the matter said, “It is not a matter of discrimination. It is corruption and corrupt practices and a complaint before the National Accountability Bureau should be filed. In my opinion, their inception in corporation is totally illegal without jurisdiction and in violation of the law. Honourable chief justice has questioned the Punjab chief secretary several times over this matter and I am sure that action would be taken soon.”

Salman Sufi while talking to Daily Times on the matter said that they were working more than other government employees and rightly deserved these salary packages.

“Apples cannot be compared to bananas and therefore I consider that this debate over high salaries is unjustified,” he said.

Published in Daily Times, May 31^st 2018.