Islamabad:
Pakistan has informed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) about his plan to fire surplus employees offering them a gold -handed tightness, since the weak income performance has emerged an important area of concern towards the end of the conversations.
The global lender has also questioned the rationality of the retention of ministries in areas that, according to the Constitution, are provincial subjects, said the sources of the government aware of the discussions.
During this week, the IMF approach remained in the collection and tax perspectives of the Federal Income Board, the size of the government and, more importantly, in the destination of the sovereign fund of the wealth, which must be aligned with the prescription of the IMF.
The sources said that weak tax revenues arose as an important source of concern towards the end of the conversations after the IMF did not accept FBR projections to unite the income deficit for the rest of the fiscal year. The Ministry of Finance also hastened to the drawing table to discover areas where expenses can be reduced to satisfy the IMF.
One of the meetings held on Tuesday was not good and after the FBR and the Ministry of Finance began to rebuild the numbers, including the search for possible savings sources to compensate for the income deficit. The ministry may have to deliver its contingency fund, reduce certain non -productive expenses. I was also analyzing the accounting of the surplus of the primary budget, the sources said.
The Minister of Finance, Muhammad Aurengzeb, also held a session with the IMF mission head on Wednesday. The discussions focused on the new fiscal objective for the FBR for the current fiscal year.
The authorities had the hope that small differences on income projections and possible savings are resolved today (Thursday).
Gold -handed
The sources said that the Cabinet division gave an informative session to the IMF about the actions, which are necessary to reduce the size of the government. According to the $ 7 billion package, the Government had to “share with the IMF staff, a report that details actions to reduce the federal government footprint.”
It was told to the IMF that the Government planned to amend the 1973 Civil Services Law, which provides protection against reduction reduction, to fire the surplus staff and the officers. At present it was told to the fund that no employee can be sent home due to legal protections under the law of public officials.
The plan, if implemented, would end the current practice of retaining dead woods until their retirement age. It can also help align the structure of civil bureaucracy with the military where the best of the best are retained.
During an informative session on the current government impulse to reduce the size of civil machinery, it was revealed that total savings when abolishing vacant positions and merger or liquidation of about 10 small departments were not RS17 billion.
The amount of savings is not large compared to the high statements of the Government to implement the Rights Rights Unit, an initiative that was also perforated last week when new units were created and ministries were divided to accommodate the new battalion of ministers, ministers of states, advisors and special assistants to the prime minister.
The sources said the IMF questioned the Pakistani authorities about the need to have ministries in the domains, which under the Constitution are the provincial subjects. There are many ministries that fall in the provincial domain such as the Federal Ministry of Education and the Ministry of National Health.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has appointed ministers and ministers of state, taking the size of his cabinet to more than 50 during the recent expansion. There are three people responsible for the Ministry of Interior or Interior Affairs. The Federal Minister of Interior is Mohsin Naqvi, the internal affairs advisor with the state of the Federal Minister is PTI Discounted Pervaiz Khattak and Senator Talal Chaudhry is the Minister of State of the Interior.
Similarly, there is a Federal Minister of Health and the Minister of Health.
The Government informed the IMF about its plan to abolish thousands of vacant positions from grade 1 to 22 to save more than 12 billion. These include almost 700 positions in grade 17 to 22, which would save approximately RS2.5 billion and abolish thousands of low -salary scale positions to save RS10 billion.
The IMF said that the federal government should also consider transferring to the excess employees to the provinces. The issue of excess staff in the public sector development program also stood out at the meeting
The Government informed the IMF that around 10 organizations had been merged, transferred or closed, which will save another 5 billion.
Some of the organizations, which have been closed, include the rehabilitation rehabilitation organization of Jammu and Kashmir. It was told to the IMF that Pakistan was also restructuring the Afghan refugees organization of the Chief Commissioner. The government has already begun the process to repatriate Afghan refugees and gave a deadline of March 31 to those who have Afghan citizen letters.
It has also decided to merge three entities that do the same job and form a new authority. The special economic zones, the authority of special technology areas and the offices of export processing areas will be merged into the National Regulatory Authority for Industrial Development.
The human organ transplant authority has merged with the Islamabad health regulatory authority. The national confidence for the well -being of the population has closed while the Sheikh Zayed postgraduate hospital is being transferred to the Punjab government.
The government also planned to transfer the Hospital of the Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) of Pakistan to the capital of Islamabad, the sources said. The Government has also decided to close the National Fertilizer Corporation and the National Productivity Organization.
The Government has merged the ministries of the border states and regions and the Ministry of Affairs of Cashmira and Gilgit-Baltistan.
He has delivered the Aviation Division to the Ministry of Defense, but has created a new public affairs unit and has appointed Rana Mubashir Iqbal as Federal Minister and Abdul Rehman Kanju as Minister of State.
