A power struggle has erupted between the bureaucrats in the Centre and Lahore, with the officials of the Provincial Management Service (PMS) demanding more powers while doing away with the quota for federal officers.
A meeting of the general body of the PMS Officers Association was held in the provincial capital on Sunday, and was attended by nearly 1,000 provincial officers. The meeting passed a resolution that federal and provincial governments should abolish unconstitutional provincial sub-cadres and provisions of SRO 2020 (1) 1046, SRO 88, 89 and CSP Rules 1954, and restore provincial posts o the constitutional powers of the provincial assembly, cabinet and chief ministers.
The PMS officers demanded from the Punjab government to limit District Management Group (DMG) officers to 115 posts of provincial sub-cadre as per DMG’s own rules, till a constitutional decision is taken on provincial posts. The demanded that by imposing Rule 7.1, the 57 posts should be given to DMG officers, while the remaining 650 provincial posts should be released for them.
The officers contended that written promises made them should be implemented and S&GAD should be run through a regular minister to eliminate the civil service crisis. The meeting decided that until their demands are met, the officers will wear black armbands on Mondays and Fridays.
Furthermore, provincial officers also demanded the immediate transfer of chief secretary of Punjab, saying that he had disappointed them.
The root of Pakistan’s administrative and federal problem lies in the post of chief secretary, said Tariq Mehmood Awan, a senior official of the PMS Association.
The official told Pakistan Today that the unconstitutional appointment of an officer of the Federal Establishment Division and Services to provincial post undermines the federation and the Constitution of Pakistan.
He said that as per the Constitution, the chief minister, along with his ministers, runs the government. “The ministers should be directly accountable to the cabinet through their administrative secretaries, but when the system of all districts and departments is run by the chief secretary, then he will become a source of power and the system will be paralysed,” he said, adding that the system should be run through the ministers.
Awan said that in Pakistan, political and financial federalism has been formed in accordance with the Constitution, while administrative federalism has not been formed due to the continuous violation of the Constitution by the DMG officials. “Pakistan’s federal and governance problems are due to the colonial and highly-centralised DMG bureaucracy” he said. “More than 4,000 provincial officials have called on the provincial and federal governments to implement administrative federalism in accordance with the Constitution.”
It is worth mentioning here that the power struggle between the provincial and federal bureaucracies is not new, rather it has been going on for the past two decades, and no government has been able to resolve it to date.
In the past, Nasir Mehmood Khosa, the former chief secretary of Punjab, launched various retaliatory actions PMS officers. Many provincial officers were arrested and imprisoned during his tenure. The clash continues to this day, and the PMS Association has now launched a war against Chief Secretary Jawad Rafique Malik.
The provincial officers’ complaints are not without substance. Currently, only five PMS officers are posted as secretaries in Punjab, whereas deputy commissioners (DCs) posted in 25 out of 36 districts of the province are DMG officers. Moreover, DMG officers of BPS-20 and BPS-21 are allotted luxurious bungalows in GOR-1, but the same treatment is not meted out to their provincial counterparts as currently only three PMS officers have been allotted houses in GOR-1.
In addition to this, DMG officers of BPS-19 are often appointed as DCs in different districts, while PMS officers are deprived of this right. Furthermore, BPS-20 DMG officers are compulsorily given the secretariat, but PMS officers are not. Lastly, while the DMG officers are promoted to a higher grade every five years, PMS officers do not have such consistency in promotions.
