Grade-20 Officer

Being a Grade-20 officer in a government department is a dream come true like situation. It is almost like reaching at a pinnacle of your career. One enjoys the self-actualization status of their service. You are respected all around, with maximum perks of your stature, besides, being in a highly responsible position.

But there are sacrifices attached to this spot also. A life-long struggle. It is not an instant climb. It took me more than 35 years to attaining this peak, and now left with one or two more years to retain this position before calling it a day at reaching a stage of superannuation. Under the normal circumstance one should reach at this zenith with 25 years of their service coupled with an excellent service record. But government departments work under weird set of rules that delay the promotions and elevation to the higher scales to undesirable extent and due to various unavoidable reasons.

Another obscured aspect of the life of a public officer is that one has to maintain the lifestyle of prevailing working environment. For example, if one is working in Grade-18 or 19 then their friendly and family gatherings would also revolve around the people working in the similar grades or higher; requiring to maintain a certain status.

Climbing up the ladder from Grade-17 to Grade-20 looks an easy ride but it takes a toll of your own and family’s time and resources, ageing in particular. Let’s go back to the four (five, in fact) stages from G-17 to 20 and discuss each one briefly, step by step, in an ascending order, from my personal perspective:

Stage-1: It is an induction stage, carrying lots of dreams and wishes to be realized in ensuing times. Back in 1984 I joined in G-17 as Junior Engineer (Civil) at a place some 1000 km. away from my home town. I was installed on a monthly salary of less than 2,000 rupees. Considering that I was going to be the sole earner in the house after sudden and sad demise of my father two years ago and required to support my family from this paltry income. Supporting my siblings was simply out of question within my meager income, therefore, our widow mother kept selling our agricultural land tracts, one by one, that we used to own.

According to our office service structure my current stage was supposed to last five years. In reality it took 14 years before I moved into the next grade with none of my fault. It was the toughest period of my life in terms of weak financial position while I was raising my family too. Our rich relatives bought us refrigerator on loan basis. Some others also gave us used beds and other old furniture for our rented apartment. During hot summers we sometimes used to take our kids to our relatives’ house to spend a couple of hours in their air-conditioned rooms. The little savings we could make came through Budget Committees that my wife wisely invested in within her friends’ circle of officers’ wives. After 10 years of service I was able to buy some new furniture for our rented house and an air-conditioner too.

Stage-2: It was 1998 when we moved to Lahore as a result of my promotion in G-18. By that time my family had grown into 6 members; our four children. Living and working in a bigger city was a pleasant experience but at the same time it was difficult to manage in a monthly salary of about 8,000 rupees considering that three out of four children were attending the school. But this time I was able to take long term loan from office and manage a bank credit card (means borrowing) while my wife kept investing in committees. During this period of time I was also able to complete my Masters and then started teaching part time in the evening. Some savings also came as a result of three short foreign training courses. During this phase my elder daughter married for which I had to withdraw my savings from Employees Provident Fund (EPF). But it was not sufficient to cover the marriage related expenses and hence my relatives again came to our rescue and let our daughter begin her new phase of life in a satisfactory and befitting manner. This stage took another precious 14 years of my life, but it moved on.

Stage-3: Moved into Grade-19 in 2012, a stage where an engineer is considered and treated as senior officer. Some perks added to my position like orderly allowance, free landline telephone and cellphone, and a vehicle for official use. By now, one of my daughters was happily married at a young age of 21 years, and one of my sons went into practical life after completing his engineering studies. Two younger children went into universities, private ones, causing enormous financial burden owing to their expensive tuition fees. This causes to yet another borrowing; another long term loan from office. This time I was able to buy a small residential plot for construction of the house in future. In 2013 elder son also moved to Finland for higher studies. He kept working as “Paper Boy” in the freezing nights of Tampere, Finland to meet the expenses of his Masters. He completed the studies in 2015 and was able to land a job in one of the multinational companies in Finland.

During all these three stages of life our social life remained limited due to affordability issues. In comparison to tedious and gruesome long two early stages, this one remained short and reasonable and I moved into the next grade within four years and posted as Chief Engineer.

Stage-4: In the middle of 2016 I was posted as Chief Engineer and stationed in the same city i.e. Lahore. It was a time of financial stability in the sense that both sons were working, means earning along with me thereby decrease in the expenses on academics. Elder son got married and settled with his family in Finland.

Stage-5: In January 2018 I was elevated to a coveted position of General Manager. The irony is; the grade remains same i.e. 20. Elevation to a higher position also uproots me from Lahore. Younger son gets into nuptial knots in 2018 and almost a year later he moves to Germany in early 2019 to grab a job opportunity in Berlin.

Considering that I would be retiring from the job in later half of 2020 and that my two sons are in a position to send some remittances I take a giant step of going for the construction of our small house. I am given the estimated cost of construction as Rs. 6 million. I calculate my savings, wife’s savings through committees, EPF and all adds up to less than Rs. 2.5 million. Believing on the premise that when you marry your daughter or construct a house you receive divinely financial help, the construction begins in early 2019. When I write this piece in later part of 2019 almost 95% house is ready with construction expenditure crossing the figure of Rs. 7 million. Divine help surely reaches but it comes in loans. I will be repaying at the retirement about Rs. 2 million taken from various rich relatives, and already paying installments of Rs. 1.2 million bank loan. If the things go as planned, we intend to move to our newly built house by start of next year i.e. 2020.

Final Goals: After having retired from the job and cleared all the liabilities out of my pension gratuity coupled with the financial support of children we (me and better half) wish to spend rest of life in getting our last of children married and settled down, praying for all as usual, buying a car, going for Hajj and waiting for our children and grandchildren’s visits to us.

My Vote, Worth a Dime!

At nearly 60 years of age I have seen almost all political/ democratic elections in Pakistan; witnessed election processes and election-days when people voted, observed winners turned rulers, their early promises during elections and post-election actions, and compared their goals versus targets achieved. The result is; Pakistan has not forwarded a yard in the direction to gaining prosperity. It still remains under-developed country. The rhetorical promises from the political leaders, as some of them listed below, remain hollow promises since ages:

·       Education for all
·       Jobs to youth
·       Women emancipation
·       Adequate salaries and minimum respectable salary
·       Health for all especially poor
·       Clean potable water
·       Housing
·       Poverty alleviation
·       Infrastructure development
·       Balance in exports and imports
·       Elevation of currency
·       Robust reserves with the central bank
·       Clean environment, and so on

None of the political parties ever promoted a culture of harmony, morality, ethics, honesty and integration of ethnic societies in the past. Rather, at times they highlighted fragmentation on the basis of language, caste, creed and religious factions to win votes of a particular section of the population in a particular area while slogans differed at other places.

The most disheartening factor being the absence of long-term policies in our political and democratic structure aimed at development of the country on a sustainable basis. Long term policies shape up the country and its direction, which may look working slow but long term goals have long lasting impacts. All those political parties who won the elections in the past on a certain manifesto of promises actually ruled with a single point agenda; to earn enough wealth (individually and collectively) through whatever means so that the same could be invested for winning the next elections. Needless to say that more money you are going to spend during the election campaign more chances are that you would emerge a winner.

At the formation of every new government after the elections, the ruling party cries of foul play with the economy and wealth of the nation by and through the hands of predecessors. They cry about empty treasury, excesses of foreign loans, dearth of funds for payment of interests on loans and repayment of principle loans. To resolve the issue of balance of payments they take more loans; at tough conditions of the loaning institutions: the vicious circle.

Even after decades in place all the major government departments are working in deficit apparently due to corruption, at every tier of service structure: Pakistan Steel Mills, PIA, Railways, GENCOs, DISCOs, SSGC, SNGC etc., with a pile up of spiteful loans and debts. The only rescue is; obtain more debts. Freeing ourselves from the chain of debts means having a new chain of loan tied to the country and to each of us. The latest figures say that every countryman owes a loan of Pak Rupees 115,000 and this figure is increasing day by day without any respite.

When it is said and generally believed that government is poor but people are rich, it makes sense because corruption is deep routed in our blood through last fifty (50) years of poor governance, dishonesty, nepotism, and filling the top positions of all big and important institutions on political grounds ignoring merit altogether. What an irony that in a population of more than 200 million, only 1.7 million people pay taxes that counts to be less than 1 percent. One of the main reasons behind this dismal position of taxpayers is peoples’ mistrust in the successive rulers. Most of the entitled people evade paying taxes and those willing to pay it don’t trust the incumbent rulers and feel that their tax money would go wasted on corruption practices.

Other important fact is the emergence of ‘’elite class’’ in the last decades that simply minted the money through illicit means and have gotten away cleanly. This club is expanding day by day. Thus this “elite class’’ has become the source of inspiration for the new generations because earning easy money (without a trace of accountability) has been tempting since long now.

Another curse that this country had to suffer badly from is money laundering. Since money earned through illegitimate means could not be declared or deposited in banks therefore it passed on to safe hands in the middle east, far east, Europe and the United States through money laundering. In no time ordinary people saw some other ordinary people becoming extremely rich, owning luxury cars and SUVs, and found buying real estate in DHAs, Bahrias, and on foreign soils.

The basic needs like clean water and sanitation, health, education and shelter are still beyond the reach of large segment of population. Law and order situation has always been questionable irrespective of pre or post 9/11 era. It is more fearsome for any citizen that a policeman intercepts them on the road than a plain-clothed individual. All the successive governments have failed to build or inculcate confidence into the population about the impartiality, honesty, bravery and swiftness of law enforcing agencies.

If an ordinary middleclass individual doesn’t inherit a house for living in Pakistan, then by virtue of serving their entire lives in public or private job won’t guarantee them that they would ever be able to buy or own a shelter for their respective families from a sizeable pension or gratuity.

The incumbent ruling political party which won the elections on the slogans of ‘’across the board accountability” and ‘’change’’ last year is the last hope that in the next four years the “change” would be visible and tangible in the lives of millions of people in this country. The failure would be catastrophic. People would stop believing in the political/ democratic system and would begin apprehending that either these politicians are not worth getting their votes or their own votes are worthless.