ISLAMABAD: The National Austerity Committee (NAC) constituted by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is considering various measures, including a 10 percent cut in the salaries of government employees across the board.
The proposals include a 15 per cent cut in expenditure on ministries/divisions and a proposal to reduce the number of federal ministers, ministers of state and advisers from 78 to 30, while the rest should work on a bona fide basis.
The recommendations will be finalized today (Wednesday) and the committee will send the report to Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
“The NAC is proposing to reduce the number of Ministers, Ministers of State, Advisors and Special Assistants to the Prime Minister to only 30, while if necessary, they should not enjoy any resources from the national exchequer. . They should work on a profitable basis,” sources confirmed to JEE News on Tuesday.
The government is finalizing the austerity recommendations as it seeks another tranche from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but the government is reluctant to implement the conditions. This reluctance led to an impasse with the IMF for the past two and a half months.
The NAC also recommended ending the use of funds for projects of a provincial nature and banning public sector entities from taking loans through government guarantees and several others. However, the NAC is reluctant to take big-ticket cuts in budgetary resources such as reducing the number of Ministries/Divisions after the 18th Amendment as the overlapping of Ministries/Divisions and Departments continues unabated. Is.
There are several overlapping ministries/divisions functioning at the federal level and the Center should limit their number to five to six, including Defence, External Affairs, Finance and Security, while eliminating all other devolved ministries. Should.
The committee continued its discussion in the finance division for the second day in a row. Many participants participated through online arrangements from other cities.
It is ironic that while the government is working to finalize the austerity recommendations, it has increased the program for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by Rs 3 billion and discretionary funding from Rs 86 billion. Increased to Rs 89 billion, which is used by parliamentarians.
It remains to be seen how the NAC will deal with the losses of large public sector enterprises like Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), whose losses reached Rs 67 billion this year, while Pakistan Steel Mills, Pasco, Power Distribution Companies and others were facing. massive losses. Only the power sector suffered a loss of 1600 billion rupees in the last financial year.
The NAC also considered a proposal to freeze discretionary funds of intelligence agencies including the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB). The committee considered the proposal to reduce defense expenditure but the defense secretary replied that it could not be possible in view of inflation and exchange rate depreciation. However, the Committee may consider rationalization of non-war expenditure.
The committee considered banning the purchase of vehicles, freezing all local and foreign incentives and perks and reducing the number of vacancies in various ministries and divisions.
The World Bank recommended abandoning PASCO because there should be direct links between farmers and millers and this type of intermediary organization should be eliminated. PASCO has accumulated debt of Rs 900 billion and is piling up another type of revolving debt, which the government will have to liquidate by the end of the day.
Top government sources said the NAC had decided in its internal meeting to finalize the recommendations within five days, so they could come up with the proposals much earlier than the 15-day deadline notified by the finance division.
A finance ministry official commented that the NAC was making big recommendations but it would be difficult for the current government to implement any of them.
It will remain only a debating club and the government will only carry out window-dressing operations in the afternoon of its tenure when the political temperature is rising with each passing day.
The prime minister had last week formed the NAC headed by former bureaucrat Nasir Mehmood Khosa.
