Islamabad:

A cabinet body on Monday approved a new fee policy for the officials who gave discretionary powers to the Minister of Finance to approve as many as the budget’s fee for the employees of economic ministries, parliament and the prime minister’s office, according to an official statement.

Led by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, the Cabinet’s Economic Coordination (ECC) approved a summary of the Financial Division that outlined the policy for the award of fees to government employees, “it says.

ECC authorized the Minister of Finance to “give the budget a fee to the employees published in the Finance Division, Revenue Division, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), planning, development and special initiatives Division, National Assembly Secretariat, Senate Secretariat and the Prime Minister’s Office,” according to the recently approved politics.

“The quantity of the budget’s fee for each financial year is decided by the Minister of Finance,” reads the new policy that gives discretionary powers to the Minister of Finance to elaborate as many budget honorariums as he or she sees appropriate without any upper cap.

The tax rate for these budget honorariums will also be far lower than the standard income tax rates. According to the policy subject to the federal cabinet approval, “taxation of fees will be on the lines with taxation of income allowance”. The bureaucrats who receive income allowance pay only 5% in income tax on the amount they receive as income reimbursement.

“The tax on payments under the compulsory income interior of the transport facility for officials in BS-20 to BS-22 (which is reduced by deduction of the driver’s salary) is charged at a rate of 5% as a separate income block,” the income tax says.

In response to the Express Pakinomist queries, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said “the grant of budget fee has always been with Finance Minister as chairman of the ECC”.

He added that the Minister of Finance was in the best position to evaluate the efforts of budget production, as his work involved close to working with all the economic ministries associated with budget formulation and implementation.

“Second, the supposed discretion is exercised following recommendations from the Honorary Committee and PAOs and are further exposed to a delegated evaluation within the constituents of each ministry,” the Minister added.

Reposn to another question about the tax rate at these fees, the Finance Minister declared that “Budget Honorary is once a reward regime and is therefore taxed at a rate other than salary”.

Overall, the new policy is the rewards that the bureaucrats get in addition to their standard wages. Currently, the federal secretaries are authorized to give a fee up to class 18 officers in a financial year.

Over Class 18, the approval of the ECC chairman was required. According to the new policy, the federal secretary will be authorized to give a fee to all employees except for himself.

A new reward category is also advertised for all the federal government employees. Currently, there is no reward regime in place for high -leading people in the federal government who are demotivating for high -performance employees, according to the Ministry of Finance.

Now it has been decided that the federal secretary can give a performance fee equal to a basic salary, on outstanding results, to a maximum of 25% employees of a ministry or a department in BPS 1-22, except for him or himself. The federal secretary’s fee is decided by the federal minister in accordance with the decision.

Apart from an annual reward, a performance reward and as many as budget rewards as the finance minister wants what no other fees will be awarded, including those associated with religious festivals such as Eid and Christmas, according to the new policy. Employees who have received budget fees are not eligible for the allocation of ordinary and achievement of achievement.

The new policy says that no fee will be paid in cash and that all fees should be reflected in payroll statements. Performance Honorary will not be awarded by a ministry if the employee has not worked in such a service for less than six months.

No fee, except for unique performance fee, will be awarded before May 1st in a financial year. Employees who have received budget fees are not eligible for the allocation of ordinary and achievement of achievement.

If ordinary and performance fees have already been awarded to an employee who gets budget fees, the amount of budget fees will be adjusted against the already drawn performance honorium. No employee will receive a fee from more than one organization.

Meanwhile, ECC RS61.2 billion in additional grants approved different ministries, mainly for payment of short -term debt. It approved RS1.7 billion to the Ministry of Defense “for technological upgrade of ISPR” according to the Ministry of Finance.

The meeting approved RS1.3 billion in grants to the Ministry of Finance to return the amount to the government in Sindh as unused funds from wheat seeds cash reimbursement program. It approved the RS40.3 billion to the Division for Economic Affairs due to revised budget estimates for FY2024-25 to repay short-term foreign loan credits.

The ECC also approved a summary of the Power Division to approve a Tripartit power purchase agreement of 1,145 MW Karachi Nuclear Plant Unit-2 (K-2) and Unit-3 (K-3) in Karachi.

The ECC considered a summary of the Ministry of Commerce and approved a change in import policy order (IPO) for the state -owned defense production units and their healed commercial subsidiaries. The ECC also approved a summary of the Ministry of Housing for the withdrawal of directives for the transfer of the Hyderabad package and the Karachi package from the Government in Sindh to Pidcl.