Islamabad: The federal government has slapped a ban on the creation of new jobs and purchase of new vehicles under austerity drive.
According to an Office Memorandum (MO) issued by the Ministry of Finance, the government has decided to bring expenditure to a minimum level. Therefore, the following steps have been initiated:
- ban on creation of new jobs except for development projects
- ban on purchase of new vehicles (excluding motorcycles)
- Rational use of utilities will be ensured by Principal Accounting Officers (PAOs), which includes electricity, gas, telephone, water etc. and expenses incurred on purchase of assets, repair and maintenance and other operational expenditure
- provision of one newspaper/magazine/periodicals
- both sides of a paper will be used
Austerity Committee has been formed to review and approve only critical and unavoidable proposals pertaining to the purchase of vehicles and creation of posts.
The committee will be comprised of
- Additional Finance Secretary (Expenditure) (In Chair)
- Senior Joint Secretary/Joint Secretary (Expenditure) (Member)
- Senior Joint Secretary/Joint Secretary (Member) (Exp. – of ministry/division) concerned, finance division
- CF&AO of the ministry/division concerned (Member)
- Representative of the ministry/division concerned (Member)/Department (Not less than an officer in BS-20)
- Deputy Secretary (Expenditure) (Secretary)