ISLAMABAD: The All Government Employees Grand Alliance on Thursday reviewed the progress made on government’s decision to resolve the issues of employees including the grant of 150 per cent executive allowance.
In this connection, the officers from BS-17 to BS-22 of the Planning Group, Information Service Group and other ex-cadre groups from 14 ministries/divisions of the Federal Secretariat gathered in front of the Finance Division Q-Block to record their protest against alleged discrimination and selective grant of executive allowance (EA).
The All Government Employees Grand Alliance has given a deadline of December 20 to the government to resolve all the pending issues, or protests will be held on a daily basis.
The negotiations with the government will continue on Friday, the alliance stated.
The employees will welcome Finance Minister Ishaq Dar’s assurance to the bureaucrats of the Pakistan Secretariat to grant them a 150 per cent executive allowance within a week, to end the “financial discrimination”.
The bureaucrats from the Economist, Technical, and Information Service Groups will wrap up their 13-day pen-down protest in case the government agrees to their demands.
Earlier, the federal cabinet issued a notification stating that executive allowance will be given to officers of the Federal Secretariat, President Secretariat, PM’s Office, and the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) field administration, effective from 1 July 2022.
However, the Finance Ministry only granted the benefit to two groups leaving behind others, hence, the above-mentioned bureaucratic groups observed a pen-down strike.
It is imperative to mention here that these bureaucrats’ strike has severely affected the functioning of the Planning Ministry.
The officers also adopted a joint resolution stating that the federal cabinet on June 10, 2022, approved the grant of EA to all officers of BS-17 and above working in the Federal Secretariat.
However, the Finance Division partially implemented the cabinet decision which was 150 per cent raise in their basic salary and gave the allowance only to specific groups, including the Office Management Group and Pakistan Administrative Service.
The protesters under the banner of “Federal Secretariat Deprived Officers” said the aggrieved officers in every ministry and division had started agitation at the ministry level.
The secretary and minister of each ministry have already written to the prime minister, the finance minister and the secretary to extend the executive allowance to the remaining officers.
The officers said this act was a violation of Articles 4, 25, 38(c) of the Constitution.
“In view of the above, deprived officers of various ministries/divisions have joined hands and decided to start a pen down strike and registered their peaceful protest in front of Finance Division for grant of executive allowance to all officers irrespective of their cadres,” the joint declaration said.
The protesting officers also called upon the finance minister to resolve the issue and expressed dismay that despite the pen-down strike no serious action had been taken so far to resolve the issue.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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