THE Federal Cabinet, which met in Islamabad on Wednesday with Prime Minister Imran Khan, discussed substantial issues that have been agitating the minds of the people since long and outcome of the deliberations augur well for positive movement on these subjects.
It mulled over disparity in salaries of the federal and provincial employees, legislation on missing persons, sexual crimes against women and children, inheritance and transparency in Senate elections.
It is widely known that the Government employees feel more at ease to work in the provinces because of improved salary packages and some of them even resist attempts to transfer them to the Centre where salaries are comparatively lower.
Provinces have their own revenue resources and there is absolutely no harm if they adopt a caring attitude towards their employees and approve measures aimed at mitigating their hardships and ensuring they live a respectable life.
In this backdrop, the call of the cabinet to the provinces to end disparity in salaries of their employees and those of the federal government is not understandable. In ideal circumstances, salaries of the federal government employees and corporations should be more attractive than those in the provinces but in case the authorities have some issues, the wiser approach would be to match the salaries by increasing salaries of federal employees.
The suggestion to the provinces to end disparity amounted to asking them to revise salaries downward, which would be unjust. However, both the federal and provincial governments must ensure equality in salaries and grant of various allowances for all their employees and there should be no holy cows on any pretext.
As for the issue of missing persons, the relatives of the missing persons have been holding protests since long and it is appreciable that the Prime Minister issued instructions to the Law Ministry, where draft legislation on the issue is stuck up for two years, to expedite presentation of a consensus bill in Parliament.
But is it a co-incident that the cabinet evinced interest in the legislation and Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad met the relatives of the missing persons when PML(N) leader Maryam Nawaz visited the camp of the affected families at D-Chowk on Wednesday? The Government can legitimately take credit for working hard to introduce the element of complete transparency in the Senate elections and political battles should be fought in the political arena alone.
Legislation about sexual crimes against women and children is there and what we need is vigilance and commitment on the part of the federal and provincial governments to implement them in letter and spirit.
