ISLAMABAD: The Private Power & Infrastructure Board (PPIB) has approved interim relief of 30 per cent in basic salaries of its employees including those of the dissolved AEDB, with effect from July 1, 2023, official sources told Business Recorder.
According to Managing PPIB, in 2007 the Board of PPIB decided that PPIB’s employees’ salaries will be market-based and shall be revised after every two years based on market survey; however, the salaries were revised in 2017 and since then no revision in them has been made.
He said that during this period PPIB’s performance is commendable which is evident from the fact that the team has facilitated commissioning of 46 multi-fuel based Independent Power Producers (IPPs) of 14,624 NIW.
He further explained that in 2022 PPIB after a survey by HR consultant presented a case to the HR Committee of the Board with the recommendation that PPIB’s compensation package is far behind the market and need substantial increase; however, the HR Committee recommended 10% ad-hoc allowance as temporary relief and advised to increase the number of comparator organisations and put up the case for consideration. In the meantime, PPIB/ AEDB merger case picked up pace which will take considerable time to materialise as the HR Consultant is working on restructuring of organisation and its pay scale revision.
MD PPIB has briefed the PPIB Board that keeping in view the skyrocketed inflation and manifold increase in taxes on the salaried-class, PPIB is far behind its peer organisations in sector, adding that this situation has led to de-motivation and it is difficult to retain best available human capital.
Furthermore, PPIB is facing difficulties to attract best human resource from the market in the current pay structure.
The Board whose members, are also getting handsome fee of meetings, critically analysed various aspects of proposed increase of 30% in basic salary encompassing comparison of PPIB salary structure with basic pay scales and post-employment benefits of government employees, shifting pay structure of PPIB to government pay scales and pension, linking annual increment to inflation of non-tradable items, impact of salary tax on take-home salaries, revising salary structure by freezing annual increments, etc.
The Board at the same time took cognizance of the fact that shifting a professionally equipped organisation to government pay structure is itself contradictory to the wisdom of creating such organisations, which are meant to work with a team of professionals and technocrats.
The Board while agreeing to the proposed pay raise advised that annual increment may not be a percentage, if salary structure is supposed to be reviewed periodically, as a percentage annual increment is devised to cater for expected inflationary hikes.
After detailed deliberation, the Board approved the proposal of increase of 30% in the current basic pay having financial impact to the tune of Rs. 237 million.
The Board advised PPIB Management to review the annual increment as per the market practices and come up with a rationalised & justified proposal within a period of one month; otherwise, the employees may not be awarded annual increment for the current year.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023