ISLAMABAD: The cash-starved government is bearing an additional expenditure of over Rs5 million a month on salaries, perks and privileges of four ministers and a minister of state whose ministries have been handed over to provinces under the devolution plan, sources in the cabinet division told Dawn on Thursday.
“Despite the fact that these five ministers are no longer required in the centre, they are still members of the cabinet and getting their salaries and perks from the cabinet division,” said a senior official of the cabinet division on condition of anonymity.
The five devolved ministries are: Local Bodies and Rural Development, Zakat and Ushr, Population Welfare, Special Initiative and Youth Affairs.
When contacted, the chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Reforms, Mr Raza Rabbani, said he had nothing to do with ministers of defunct ministries.
“It is not my job to take a decision about the ministers. My job was to de-notify the ministers which I have done,” Mr Rabbani said.
In his opinion it is the job of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and PPP co-chairman President Asif Ali Zardari to ask the defunct ministers not to draw salary and facilities.
The sources said that besides the five ministers, chairmen of six standing committees and one parliamentary secretary had been affected by the handing over of these ministries to provinces.
The federal cabinet and the Parliamentary Commission for Implementation of the 18th Amendment recently approved the devolution of these ministries. Five more ministries are to be devolved soon.
The five defunct ministers who are still on the cabinet division`s pool are: Shahid Hussain Bhutto (Youth affairs), Firdos Ashiq Awan (Population welfare), Lal Muhammad Khan (Special initiatives), Noorul Haq Qadri (Zakat and Ushr) and Masood Abbas (Housing).
“Each federal minister is getting Rs250,000 per month as salary, house rent and utility charges, but the overall expenditure which the cabinet division bears is over Rs1 million,” the official said.
They are still occupying government accommodation, using official vehicles and have office staff, personal secretaries, drivers and guards.
The defunct ministers not only get salaries and other perks but they still travel across the country by air on government expenses.
