1. When political foes praise you, you must've done something right.
Thank you @Inayat01 JI parliamentary leader for the sporting praise; hard to do in Pakistan's culture. An incredible amount of work has gone into improving our budget books adding detail, clarity & transparency.
2. The finance team at GoKP can be incredibly proud!
The work they do may not get the media attention they deserve; but they are bringing dynamism to public financial management beyond any other govt in Pakistan, federal or provincial. And the results are showing.
3. From budgeting salaries at cost; to an intelligent SNE approval process; to on time & now 100% development releases at the start of year; to monthly rolling forecasts of revenue and expenditure; to pension reform, performance based pay and market based contractual recruitment.
4. These are all innovations that would make a status quo civil servant have a heart attack (and perhaps proverbially still does in certain quarters :)))) ) - Your openness to reform and trust have been something I truly respect. Thank you Secretary Atif and the finance team.
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1. A thread on pension reforms; why it is one of the biggest issues facing govt. & why we had to act now to reform pensions.
Pension costs have increased more than any other budget line across Pakistan; 95 times in KP from 2003-4 till today - from 0.87 bln to 83 bln / year.
2. With no action, pension and salary payments would surpass provincial receipts in just 6 years. This was not a problem for tomorrow. This is today's problem.
No action puts the pension payments of existing and future pensioners at risk.
3. Just pension payments alone could rise to Rs. 460 bln by 2030 if no action were taken, given govt's increasing employee base, with average growth of 22% per year over the last five years.
a. Across the province, an increase in Housing Allowance by a minimum of 50% - with rates in Peshawar increased more. Impact on basic salary, 7% or more (in Peshawar more since the cost of housing is greater).
b. 10% ad-hoc relief on basic pay, for all staff. Remember, this increase is on running basic pay, not on the initial basic pay of the grade.
c. Revamping health professional allowance, to make serving in the periphery more attractive. We need doctors outside Peshawar too.
4 district categories rather than 3, and 3 tiers per district. In category D districts, HPA can be as high as 128,000 per month (vs 42,000 minimum).
1. CM @IMMahmoodKhan & GoKP fulfilling one of its most significant promises:
Universal Health Insurance - launched by PM @ImranKhanPTI
tomorrow.
KP will be the first province in Pakistan where every citizen; almost 40,000,000 people have govt sponsored basic health insurance.
2. There is a big difference between health coverage, & health coverage for every citizen.
Universal health coverage is not just be an extension of an old programme, but a new vision.
This is a realisation of the PM's vision of transforming Pakistan into a welfare state.
3. The commitment to this bold vision was made by CM @IMMahmoodKhan over a year ago, and in that time, a lot of work has gone into finding the financing, running a new procurement, & getting ready for launch.
Proud that KP is translating the PM's vision into reality.
1. An incredibly important topic flagged by @hasaankhawar. Without fixing Pakistan's pensions structure & it's funding, civil servants of today will impair the State's ability to pay their pensions when they retire.
India fixed this issue 15 years ago. tribune.com.pk/story/2252564/…
2. The scale of the issue. KP's pension bill used to be less than Rs. 1 bln & less than 1% of the budget, just fifteen years ago. Yearly growth of 20% plus means last year, KP paid Rs. 70+ bln in pensions, 16% of the budget.
In a few years, pension payments have increased x80!
3. Project forward & it gets even more challenging without decisive action.
In 3 years pension payments almost double, & in 10 years pension projections in KP alone would be north of Rs. 500 bln a year. This is the problem every govt in Pakistan, provincial and federal faces.
1. Sometimes we need to rise above politics. Remember, the biggest challenge of govt is the cost of govt. The salaries and pensions challenge that we face across Pakistan is one that has to be solved. If we don't find a solution as a country, we will never be able to progress.
2. In many countries, public scrutiny on govt budgets is on whether govt is minimising it's own cost. Remember, everything govt doesn't spend on itself, it spends on the 99% of the population not working for govt.
3. In KP, salary and pension spend has increased by 450% over the last ten years. This is true across Pakistan, and this is why we have to control unnecessary growth in the size of govt, standing at over 500k employees in KP. We have acted boldly on this.
1. A few things about this report on fatality rates in Pakistan worth understanding;
Understanding data well will be critical in this fight; as will be the need for all; politicians; administrators; media; to change business as usual behaviour. Read on!
2. From the report; indeed KP health staff has done the best it can; they are working day and night; & there has been no laxity.
But wrong to say that conducting fewer tests is best practice. Across Pakistan, there isn't enough testing, as is the case across much of the world.
3. Given that, we are rapidly increasing testing capacity. From 40 to 300+ /day; within this month we will be at over 1000+ /day. This can only be done keeping in mind HR, safety, quality compliance and test availability. The last thing we need is for contagion in test centres.