The government is going to extend the tenure of a secretarial committee tasked with submitting a report on ways to execute the recommendations of the pay commission.
The committee was supposed to submit its report to Finance Minister AMA Muhith on February 15 at the end of the six-week time given to it for the task.
“We have already sought the finance minister’s consent for giving a four-week extension to the secretarial committee,” a Finance Division official associated with the committees work told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
“There is a huge difference between the recommendations of the National Pay and Services Commission [NPSC] and the secretarial review committee.”
Sources in the Finance Division said the government wants to execute the pay commission’s recommendations from within the resource constraint in the budget which may arise because of low revenue collection and the elongated political turmoil.
If the government follows the NPSC’s salaries and allowances revision proposals, then expenditure in this head would go up by 63.7% which means an additional Tk22,953 crore will be needed.
Of this, Tk17,464 crore will be needed for paying the government employees, Tk3,790 crore for pensioners, Tk1,688 crore for the teachers of MPO-enlisted schools and colleges, and Tk10 crore for the employees of autonomous bodies.
NPSC Chairman Mohamand Farashuddin had earlier said financing the additional amount would not be a problem if only 1% revenue growth can be ensured.
From July to December – the first half of the ongoing 2014-15 fiscal year – the National Board of Revenue managed to mobilise only a little over Tk48,000 crore or around 39% of the aggregate collection target of Tk1,49,000 crore.
In the wake of the prevailing political turmoil, the target was recently slashed by around 16%. Now the revenue target stands at Tk1,25,000 crore which the NBR will have to collect another Tk77,000 crore in the last half of the fiscal year.
Senior Finance Secretary Mahbub Ahmed, also a member of the secretarial review committee, told Dhaka Tribune that they need four more meetings to finalise recommendations.
“The secretarial committee is now preparing final recommendations, but we are having some difficulties in incorporating all of the pay commission’s recommendations,” he said
The six-member secretarial committee, led by Cabinet Secretary Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, was formed a month ago.
The five other members of the committee are the finance secretary, secretary to the prime minister, public administration secretary, defence secretary and housing and public works secretary.
In addition to reviewing the pay hike proposals for government employees, the committee is also looking after the recommended pay hikes for the armed forces.
Sources said the secretarial committee is mainly dealing with the controversial issues such as deputation, contractual jobs, time scale and selection grades.
The NPSC submitted it proposals to the finance minister on December 21 last year, recommending doubling the salaries, plots for group housing and introducing bank loan for single-digit interest rates for public servants.
The highest salary of Tk 1 lakh was recommended for the cabinet secretary and principal secretary to the prime minister; currently their basic monthly pay is Tk45,000.
The government plans to implement the hikes from July this year. The 8th National Pay and Services Commission was formed in November 2013.
Currently, there are over 832,000 government employees and around 500,000 pensioners in the country.