The federal government succeeded in the passage of the Sacked Employees Reinstatement Bill that envisaged the reinstatement of 9,000 employees sacked during the tenure of Nawaz Sharif.
The PML (N), in response, boycotted the National Assembly session the next day and the Leader of the Opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan made a fiery speech against the passage of the Bill and alleged that the government introduced and passed the Bill in the 'dark of the night', violated various articles of the constitution and negated the Supreme Court's judgement. His rationale for opposing the bill was based on sound economic principles: an additional 13 to 20 billion rupees of expenditure that such a bill envisages is ill-timed, given the fact that the federal government is running from pillar to post in its effort to generate resources, domestically and internationally, to enable it to undertake the massive rehabilitation and reconstruction in the aftermath of the devastation wreaked by the floods. In addition, over-staffing in state-owned entities (SOEs) is a major governance issue that, together with violations of PPRA by senior management, has been the root cause of huge losses which are met through budgetary support.
In this context it is relevant to note that the budget for fiscal year 2010-11 envisages over 245 billion rupees of budgetary outlay for SOEs that is simply not tenable given the country's post-flood financial needs. The Federal Finance Minister during his budget speech stated that "Pakistan's public sector enterprises are inefficient and have poor management, generating huge losses, which are then passed on to the economy and the budget.
Power sector enterprises alone cost the exchequer around Rs 180 billion in the fiscal year 2009-10...let me commit that the restructuring of eight major public sector enterprises would be the major objective of the government during 2010-11. Haemorrhaging in the PSEs is causing a drag on our economy." It is not known if work on this is progressing, however, the reinstatement of 9,000 employees is certainly not an indication of any ongoing restructuring.
The impact of a rising budget deficit on the poor of this country, including the flood victims that the government is giving handouts to, through Watan Cards, is going to be significant through its impact on inflation. Why, it can be further argued, would foreign governments and the people of this country, support the government's efforts to meet its flood-related expenditure when it has so irresponsibly earmarked an allocation that would benefit only 9,000 PPP supporters, referred to as jiyalas, many of whom were gainfully employed and whose plights are a lot better than the hapless 20 million flood victims?
PPP, however, is known for the overstaffing SOEs, not through enhanced economic activity, but through using the SOEs as recruitment centres for the party cadres. This focus could well be the reason why the SOEs perform particularly poorly when a PPP government is in place. Those who argue that providing jobs to the unemployed is a salutary goal must keep in mind that even former communists no longer overstaff SOEs, as it not only leads to losses requiring budgetary support but also renders the output/product of the entity uncompetitive in the domestic and the international market. In other words, in today's day and age supporting such over-employment is no longer justified by economists world-wide. For the PPP to continue this policy from the 1970s, therefore, shows a mindset that has not developed with the changing economic worldview.
While the country may support Chaudhry Nisar's tirade against this latest bill, yet he cannot absolve himself from blame for allowing such a bill to be passed. The government did not pass the bill in the dead of night, as he alleged, but in full daylight with all members of the National Assembly, as well as the media were aware well in advance of the time of the session. Chaudhry Nisar's sporadic attendance in the National Assembly, limited to whenever he delivers a speech, and thereby his failure to provide a leadership role to other PML (N) National Assembly members must be denounced. It is also evident that Chaudhry Nisar in his capacity as the Chair of the powerful Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has focused attention on the accountability of the low-level staff and has really not touched too many 'big guns' to date.
While the Leader of the Opposition can justify his non-attendance by claiming that the government should place all bills on the agenda in advance, yet the fact that the present government has been known to use poor attendance as an opportune moment to introduce controversial bills, must be a lesson for Chaudhry Nisar and his part-members. The Opposition must attend all the assembly sessions, for which purpose it was elected.