ISLAMABAD: The government is reported to be considering to make major changes in the federal bureaucracy.

The reshuffle, likely in a few days, is said to have been ‘necessitated’ by a strong protest lodged by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah against top finance ministry officials for ‘misleading’ the president and getting unauthorised changes made in the consensus 7th National Finance Commission Award finalised by the political leadership.

While concluding the debate on the provincial budget in the Sindh Assembly, Mr Shah had criticised the officials and expressed his lack of trust in them.

Sources said Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh had been perturbed by the allegations.

They said that except for a last-minute change of mind at the top, Finance Secretary Salman Siddique, considered to be one of the most powerful bureaucrats in the current set-up, and his second-in-command, Additional Secretary Asif Bajwa, were likely to be moved to other important positions.

Mr Siddique, who joined the finance ministry after serving as Punjab’s chief secretary, is likely to be posted as principal secretary to the prime minister in place of Nargis Sethi.

Ms Sethi, who was demoted to grade-21 following a Supreme Court order against out-of-turn promotions, is being considered for the post of establishment secretary.

The sources said a proposal to move Dr Waqar Masud, an experienced hand in public finance, to the finance ministry was also under consideration. Dr Masud, who was inducted into the bureaucracy by the late prime minister Benazir Bhutto, currently stands sidelined as textile secretary.

The sources said that although a final decision was yet to be taken, the changes would most likely revolve round Mr Siddique, Mr Bajwa, Zafar Mahmood, Dr Masud and Ismail Qureshi.

They said that Mahmood Salim Mahmood who worked as petroleum secretary before his retirement early this year was being tipped for the post of National Accountability Bureau chairman.

It all started when Sindh complained to the federal government that the finance ministry had misled the president into signing an NFC order in March that did not contain percentages agreed by the provinces for the multiple criteria under which the divisible pool of resources was to be shared.

This led to issuance of an amended presidential order in May in which percentage weight for population, poverty, revenue collection and generation and population density were defined.

However, when the federal budget was announced on June 5, the Sindh government again pointed out that, among other things, the distribution of GST revenue agreed among the provinces had not been mentioned in the documents.
Later, a revised notification by the finance ministry made substantial amendments to the ‘Explanatory memorandum on federal receipts 2010-11’, introduced the presidential order on the 7th NFC Award as an integral part of the federal budget and added sales tax on services (central excise mode) to the list of federal divisible pool taxes.

Courtesy by dawn.com