LAHORE: The Pakistan Railways (PR) has decided to rationalize its Accounts department by retaining only 80 employees out of 163 while the remaining ones will be sent to surplus pools, sources told Business Recorder on Tuesday.
The decision was taken in the meeting on rationalization of Accounts department held in the office of member finance ministry of Railways in Islamabad.
The meeting was chaired by Federal Minister for Railways Azam Khan Sawati. Dr Uzma Ikram, Member Finance, Ghulam Dastgir Baloch, Special Assistant to Federal Minister for Railways, and Umar Farooq, Advisor to Federal Minister on Technology, were also participated in the meeting.
According to minutes of the meeting, it was observed that the number of officers and employees from audit and Accounts department of PR and the Ministry of Railways will be reduced and Railways will keep 80 employees. For 163 employees’ relocation or option of sending them to surplus pool will be explored by the member finance and secretary/ chairman.
The member finance apprized the participants about the role, powers, mandate and the environment of manual working of Railways and its Accounts department over the system.
It was explained that the PR is as much a government concern as commercial enterprise. Its accounts, therefore, not only follow the essential formalities of commercial accounting but also conform to the requirements of government accounting. This object is generally achieved by keeping the accounts of the Railways on commercial basis outside the regular government account and by maintaining a link between the two to show how much is going into government revenue from Railways and how much is spent by the government, whether as capital or revenue expenditure in carrying on its activities.
He further apprised that the accounting system of Railway is based on double entry system which implies the maintenance of suitable capital and profit and loss accounts. Keeping in view this aspect, the staff strength is maintained at bare minimum for dual reporting system. Muhammad Abdul Basit, Audit & Business Advisory, told that his firm has carried out a number of studies for banking sector and other public sector entities. His firm will carry out the study of Railways system and may provide an initial report soon to suggest the minimum staff strength required to save the resources of Railways.
In addition, the federal government has promulgated Public Finance Management Act 2019 which leads to various reforms in the working of financial matters which need adequate staff strength. Since no representative of the finance and accounts attended the said meeting, the unilateral suggestion/proposal/decision should be examined in length taking into account the existing workload, current staff strength and the environment of manual working in the backdrop of likely acquisition of an ERP system to be in place in future.
The revised staff strength may also be worked out after keeping in view the volume and nature of work of similar to other organization like the Pakistan Post. According to the minutes of meeting, the aspect of automation may also be taken into account the strength before and after automation in the organizations like Auditor General Pakistan Railways and Accountant General Punjab.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
Comments
Comments are closed.