ISLAMABAD: Officers of various government departments organized a pen-down strike at federal secretariat Islamabad on Monday that even led to the delay of the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC) meeting until Wednesday.
The government performance suffers as CSS officers start pen-down strike over executive allowance discrimination led by the officers of Planning Commission, grade 17-22 officers belonging to other groups including the Information, education etc, gathered at the P-Block Pak-Secretariat and held a protest rally up to the Q-Block against elimination of discrimination in Executive Allowance.
Since almost all officers of the Planning Commission were observing the pen-down strike several official meetings have been suspended and the situation is less likely to change on Tuesday (today) too as the same is planned.
Addressing the protesting officers Manan Khan, Abdul Sattar and Jabbar Alam, highlighted that the issue has remained unresolved since July, 2022.
“We have unanimously resolved to observe full pen-down strike for January, 2023 till issuance of committed notification by the Finance division to eliminate this discrimination,” the speakers said.
The officers announced that all meetings including the Departmental Development Working Party (DDWP, Central Development Working Party (CDWP) and ECNEC will be boycotted.
The distortion was created on 19, July 2022, after the federal cabinet decided to grant an executive allowance equivalent to 150 percent of the Basic for officers of grade 17-22 serving in the federal secretariat.
However on July 17, 2022 the finance ministry notification allowed this facility only to the officers of OMG group and the PAS group. The grant was restricted to officers of other groups such as the economists group, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, etc.
This decision led to a series of protests for almost six months and 07, December, 2022 after the assurances by the Senator Ishaq Dar Finance Minister that all matters would be resolved within a week that was by December, 14, 2022.
Talking to the media one of the protesting officers said that possibly the top finance managers of the country must have assumed that the protest would finish by the end of December.
“Therefore we have decided to opt for the pen-down strike to tell the seniors that we have the same rights too,” the officer added.
At the same time some officials confided that the Ministry of Finance might reverse the allowance or propose a reduction from 150pc to 100pc for officers of the Pakistan Administrative Service and OMG officers while granting a 100pc allowance to officers belonging to the economist, Foreign Office and information groups in the bureaucracy.
“There are a total of 1,800 officers from grade 17 to 22 in the secretariat, some 1,200 have been granted 150 percent raise and only 600 are remaining,” said one officer.
