LAHORE: Following purchasing a large fleet of luxury vehicles for the bureaucracy as well as parliamentarians, the Punjab government has given its nod to massively increase the salaries of provincial parliamentarians. The PML-N government had secretly taken the matter to the provincial cabinet meeting, which met on Dec 3, as an ex-agenda item for its approval. The provincial cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz considered and approved an increase in parliamentarians’ salaries, which were not revised for the past several years. The approval to increase salaries of parliamentarians will be presented before the Punjab Assembly in the form of a Bill, to be forwarded by the law and parliamentary affairs department to the assembly in due course of time – for debate and approval. No increase in salary of opposition leader comes as a surprise The Punjab government had promulgated the Perks and Privileges Ordinance 2002 and later amendments were made to enhance the salaries finally allowing that the parliamentarians’ salaries be increased annually in line with the salaries of BS-22 civil service officers. However, the salaries of parliamentarians did not increase in line with civil servants’ salaries and remained static since then. Since the existing salaries of parliamentarians including speaker, deputy speaker, ministers and others were considered “very low”, the cabinet has given approval to the proposal to fix new salaries. It is learnt that the Punjab cabinet had also considered the salaries of Balochistan Assembly parliamentarians, which were far higher than the Punjab Assembly parliamentarians. The parliamentarians at different positions in the assembly were drawing around Rs100,000 to Rs200,000 a month. Sources in the provincial cabinet told that the speaker’s salary has been pushed up to Rs1 million a month, while the deputy speaker will draw Rs800,000 per month. The cabinet approved increase in salaries of ministers at par with the speaker at the rate of Rs1 million per month. As per new criteria, the parliamentary secretaries will get Rs600,000; and special assistants and advisers at the rate of Rs700,000 per month. They are currently getting monthly salaries at around Rs130,000. While the MPAs in the Punjab Assembly have been entitled to draw a monthly salary at the rate of Rs500,000, the MPAs are currently drawing Rs162,000 per month. It is learnt that the cabinet had surprisingly not considered increasing the salary of the opposition leader in the house. Sources in the provincial cabinet told that the salaries’ increase decision had been taken for one time and any such decision in future would be considered independently upon moving a summary to the chief minister for approval and reflection on the provincial cabinet agenda. When contacted, PTI MPA Ahmer Rasheed Bhatti said the Punjab government was out to massively increase the salaries of legislators but without any mechanism of measuring their performance or holding them accountable. “Has the parliamentarians done any legislation for the benefit of people, whom they represent in the Punjab Assembly,” he asked. Mr Bhatti said he had also objected to linking parliamentarians’ salaries with the civil servants in the Punjab Assembly asserting that the parliamentarians had their independent identity.