Whose Poverty Alleviation are you responsible for?

Dear Minister of Poverty Alleviation,

As citizens for peace, progress and wellbeing of Pakistan and its people – especially the disadvantaged, exploited and underpaid, may we bring the following to your kind notice.

1. We cannot thank you enough for raising the salary of the four poorest, and most downtrodden individuals of Pakistan, i.e. Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Chairman and Deputy Chairman Senate of Pakistan. Their salaries were raised from Rs 205,000 to Rs 1950,000 – just a humble rise of 850 %. You might like to explain to the ignorant Pakistanis as to what is meant by the modest Sumptuary Allowance of Rs 650,000 given to each of these four poverty-stricken impoverished gentlemen?

2. We do appreciate that in your noble endeavour of alleviating poverty, you started with the most deprived and most diseased, such as the above four gentlemen. Your wise decision to ignore the richer classes, such as the 12,000 sanitation workers of SSWMB, one million security guards and 80 percent workers of Pakistan, was a blessing for creating an equitable society in Pakistan. Who does not know that they already have a highly bloated minimum wage of Rs37,000 – which in fact needs to be frozen for the next many years. We deeply appreciate and commend your sense of proportion, sanity and austerity in working towards this freeze.

3. Your Excellency, please allow me to point out 2 minor issues that deserve your kind attention, in the future poverty alleviation programs.

a. Of the 15 million workers of Sindh, only 650,000 or 4.3% are registered to SESSI. Same is true for other provinces. This figure is too high and could be hugely reduced by creating incentive schemes for employers not to register their sleepy employees.

b. Of the 75 million workers of Pakistan, the monthly EOBI contribution is deposited for 3.28m or 4.4 % workers only. You will agree that this translates into an unnecessary expenditure of giving Rs10,000 as pension to each of these workers at some stage. Instead, could we request you to kindly look into and increase the salary of those who reside on the fringes of the poverty line, such as the Honourable Judiciary of Pakistan, whose members get a scanty take home salary of Rs2.51 million per month. They too deserve your thoughtful and compassionate consideration in the next poverty alleviation programme.

Respectfully,

Naeem Sadiq

16 June 2025