Imran bans first-class air travel for top Pakistan officials

Discretionary funds abolished, govt office working hours revised

FE Team | Published: August 25, 2018 22:57:22

In what appears to be unfolding of its agenda for 'change', the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government on Friday revised working hours in government institutions, abolished discretionary funds of the prime minister, federal ministers and members of the National Assembly.
The government imposed a ban on first-class air travel by the president, head of the government, chief justice, Senate chairman and NA speaker, Dawn newspaper reported on Saturday.
The decisions were taken at the second meeting of the federal cabinet in a week presided over by Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The cabinet rejected a proposal for declaring only one official weekly holiday on Sunday and withdrawing the second weekly holiday on Saturday.
The meeting also decided to conduct audit of all mega transport projects carried out in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the last government. It was decided that the prime minister would use the official aircraft only for domestic tours and not for foreign visits.
Another important decision taken by the cabinet was formation of task forces for upgrading katchchi abadis (shanty settlements) across the country and launching tree plantation in main cities.
The meeting decided to abolish the Ministry of Capital Administration & Development Division (CADD) and merge its departments into other ministries.
Dawn has learnt that the interior ministry had prepared a proposal for withdrawing the official holiday on Saturday in view of austerity measures and improving the performance of government departments.
The cabinet rejected the proposal and it was portrayed that working hours of government employees have been increased. While the span of working hours will remain same -- eight hours -- the new office timing will be 9am-5pm. The previous timing was 8am-4pm.
When asked if the army chief also fell in this category, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said the army chief was never allowed the first class and he used to travel in the business class.
The minister said former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had spent Rs51 billion government funds only in one year by exercising his "discretionary powers". Similarly, President Mamnoon Hussain also distributed public money of Rs90 million on his
own discretion. He said that of the Rs51bn funds, Mr Sharif gave away Rs30bn to his MNAs and Rs21bn was given or spent on different occasions.
"That was taxpayers' money which was lavishly used by the ex-prime minister. Now the incumbent prime minister has ordered that he and any other government functionary will not spend even a single penny in the name of discretionary funds," he added.
Mr Chaudhry said now the government's funds would be released only after the approval of parliament so that taxpayers' money could be utilised in a better way.
The information minister said that as part of the government's austerity plan, the cabinet decided to dissolve the CADD ministry and the departments working under it would be merged into other ministries.
The CADD ministry was created by the last Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government and its main departments were the Capital Development Authority, Federal Directorate of Education and two hospitals of the federal capital - Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences and Poly Clinic.
The cabinet decided to conduct audit of mega transport projects in Punjab and KP, including the former's Lahore, Multan and Rawalpindi Metro projects, to ascertain if the funds allocated for them were actually spent on them or not.