Former Supreme Court (SC) judge justice Azmat Saeed will receive a monthly payment of Rs 1.2 million after Punjab Standing Committee of Cabinet on Finance and Development approved the amount to be paid for his new role as the head of the Punjab Commission on Irregular Housing and Schemes.
This package was decided in defiance of the recommendation by the Punjab Local Government and Community Development (LG&CD) department, which had recommended that allowance be offered at the rate of pay scale MP-1, as per a report in Dawn.
The standing committee rejected most of the LG&CD department’s recommendations. The department had further recommended that the two members of the commission be paid according to the MP-2 scale, but the committee instead decided that the members will be paid Rs 0.6 million each.
The LG&CD department had recommended that the private co-opted members be paid according to the MP-2 scale and the public members should be given Rs 100,000 each. But once again, the committee overrode the department’s recommendations and allowed Rs 200,000 allowance for the private members. A total of Rs. 32.4 million will be spent by the Punjab government on the salary package of the commission.
The LG&CD department had initially presented its recommendation to the Punjab chief minister, who in turn had forwarded the same to the Standing Committee. The chief minister is yet to approve the recommendations made by the cabinet committee.
