Hurdles of pay and services reformation

Published : 26 Nov 2013, 02:33 PM
Updated : 26 Nov 2013, 02:33 PM

The finance minister has at last translated his announcement of budget speech of 2013-2014 to bring substantial reformation in the pay and services of the government employees by constituting a Permanent Pay and Services Commission. The paragraph 189 of his Budget Speech stated, "We significantly enhanced the pay and allowances of the government employees with effect from 2009 following the recommendation of the Pay Commission. At that time, we said that instead of constituting Pay Commission in such a discrete manner, we may constitute a permanent Pay Commission that may recommend salary adjustment commensurate with inflation and also address the issue salary discrepancies."

The question has now been raised from different quarters whether this all-party interim government can constitute a Commission for 6 months while its tenure is for two months only. Besides, what is the nature of urgency that developed suddenly to constitute a pay and services commission quickly when normal tenure of the government is over.

Some critics contend that 20% Dearness Allowances are enough to please officials who will discharge responsibilities as polling officers or presiding officers during 10th National Parliament.

It is obvious that this type of awarding benefits might not tempt public servant to favour a particular party during election or involve in rigging. Had it been so, President Ershad who doubled the pay in 1984 and made major reformations by Enam committee would not have had any opposition from the government officials in 1990 or before.

This Pay and Services Commission might be termed as unique one in Bangladesh although there were several pay commissions constituted earlier since independence. So far, seven pay commissions were constituted in 1973, 1976, 1984, 1990, 1997, 2004 and 2007. This time, it would be the 8th pay commission although initially for six months but the nature of this commission might be permanent in character and continuity.

Thus, this commission must be pragmatic in outlook with given broad-based terms of reference to resolve issues of inter-cadre inconsistencies and inequalities in the pay structure among different layers and hierarchies. The Terms of Reference of this Commission has covered pay and services issues of semi-government, autonomous bodies, nationalized bank, financial institutions and industrials units, besides the pay and services of the 13 lakhs government employees in particular.

Every pay commission so far constituted recommended revision of pay structure with different packages with the expectations to reduce resentments among employees and provide incentives to ensure better output with efficiency, integrity and devotion in discharging responsibilities to the Republic. A few fundamental issues were taken into consideration while considering the basic needs of a compensation package for a public servant.

The pay scale revision was to make consistency and necessary adjustments with the rate of inflation and the price level required for the family of a public servant. Previously, the 7th Pay Commission considered the needs of salary and other benefits of a family unit consisting of four members whereas, this Commission might consider six members with the inclusion of mother and father as members of the family of a public servant.

In reality, the ratio of application of standard between highest and lowest echelon, that is, pay structure between a Secretary and an M L SS should be at best 1:8 as demanded by the 4th class employees of the government. This was in fact 1:11 as recommended by 7th Pay Commission with the pay of Secretary as Tk. 45,000 and M L S S as Tk. 4000 per month. This time Commission must attach importance to this concept of balancing to reduce the gap.

There is a popular demand that the existing 20 grades and scales of pay should be reduced to 10 or 11 in order to maintain consistency and uniformity of standard to remove widely visible differentiation among almost equals.

It must be pointed out that economists and entrepreneurs are allergic to such pay enhancement as its impact on market price and affordability of private sector employers.

Very recently, wage board awards for readymade garment workers generated heated debates among government, garment workers and BGMEA and BKMEA. Thus, this Commission must keep in view all these issues while recommending any radical changes in the pay structure of the employees.

It needs to be pointed out that budget package from the exchequer arrived at Tk. 27,500 crores including Tk.  4,500 crores with 20 % dearness allowances as announced last month to pay to public servants. This expenditure is around 3 per cent of the GDP of the country.

Most important issue is that social scientists are in view that any increase in pay and allowances must act as prime mover to restore discipline, ensure good governance and improve the level of integrity of public servants with visible transparency and evidence based accountability. Otherwise, efforts of the government and recommendation of the Pay Commission would be treated as total failure.

A school of thought confidently believes that the government should consider the enhancement of other tangible benefits in lieu of dolling out cash encouraging employees to spend lavishly and creating price hike unnecessarily.

These benefits could be diversified like increased medical benefits, rationing facilities, education allowances for two children, improved transport facilities, rest and recreation allowances,  job risk allowances, overtime and festival bonuses, maternity benefits, housing loan and advances, enhanced rate of interest on small  saving, paying  insurance premium at lower rate  etc as tangible benefits  to the public servants .

These are major hurdles and challenges for Pay Commission while acting for pay revision and fixation of packages as pointed out above. The 7th Pay Commission took 14 months to come out with its final recommendations. This Pay Commission might take at least a year to present an acceptable set of recommendation.

The Pay Commission of 1984 received applause from employees for doubling the pay and other benefits. On the other hand, Awami League government in 1997 had to face a strong agitation from employees of Bangladesh Secretariat, the government had to use police force with dog squad to quell the agitation and many employees had to loss their jobs to fight for better scale and salaries. This revision of pay scale and reformation of services should not be taken as an easy task to accomplish quickly and unilaterally without extensive interactions with stakeholders.

This Pay and Services Commission headed by Dr Mohammad Farashuddin must also address major problems of services reorganization and removal of inter cadre confusions.

This would be very hard areas of reformations including the recruitment, placement, promotion etc. In precise, the commission must have a look to the bureaucratic norms and procedures now prevailing in the country including public servants conduct rules, discipline and appeal rules, administrative tribunals etc.

In fact, this type of reformation needs support of a strong political government with commitments to empower bureaucracy. The government of Awami League for the last five years could not arrive at a decision to reform Civil Servants Act due to unknown reasons.

Therefore, many stakeholders feel strongly that this interim government should not constitute such a Pay and Services Commission to address such critical issues of pay and services at this stage since this Commission might not get support  from any party in future other than Awami League in power.

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Dhiraj Kumar Nath is a former secretary and adviser to the caretaker government.