Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has rejected a budgetary proposal adopted by parliament in June this year to offer monthly compensation to top mandarins of the federal government instead of chauffeur-driven official vehicles that would have resulted in savings of Rs 1 billion annually.
An official source said Gilani had rejected the proposal on the grounds that the scope of the scheme was limited to federal ministries only and there was no guarantee that the misuse of official vehicles from each ministry’s pool would stop after implementation of the proposed scheme planned by the Finance Ministry. Secondly, provincial governments had shown no interest in the scheme and even the armed forces were not likely to implement it, said a source in the Cabinet Division.
The Finance Ministry in July this year had submitted the proposal that all officers of the federal government in Grade 20 to Grade 22 be offered financial compensation of Rs 55,000 to Rs 75,000 per month instead of government-maintained vehicles. The Cabinet Division opposed the proposal, saying it would not result in significant savings, as the ministries would still have to maintain a car pool. The source said the disinterest of the provincial governments and autonomous bodies working under the federal government was another impediment in the successful implementation of the scheme. It was also pointed out during deliberations at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat that officers would be taking hefty allowances, but no checks were mentioned to stop the misuse of official cars if the proposed scheme was implemented.
The officials of the Cabinet Division also noted that some of the current vehicles given to top officials were old and their replacement would serve no financial purpose for the cash-strapped government. “The prime minister was also told that Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) were already implementing the vehicle monetisation scheme but their savings had not witnessed any significant increase,” said the source. It is to be mentioned that soon after floating of the vehicle monetisation scheme by the Finance Ministry, some top bureaucrats had launched efforts to sabotage the scheme. At present 1,391 officers of the federal government are allowed official cars. Under the law, a federal minister and a minister of state are entitled to use one car only, which should be of 1,800cc, while a federal secretary is entitled to a 1,300cc car.
A few months ago, Federal Audit Director General Syed Gulzar Hussain had told the monitoring and implementation committee of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that of the 18,000 government vehicles in use by the federal government, 14,000 were being used against the law and allocated criteria, which was causing an annual loss of Rs 5 billion to the national exchequer.