Islamabad: An audit report by the Auditor General of Pakistan has revealed that the Ministry of Finance unlawfully distributed bonuses totaling PKR 2.4 billion to its officers and staff over the past year without cabinet approval.
According to the 2023-2024 audit report, staff ranging from Grade 1 to 20 received PKR 2.25 billion in bonuses, while officers in Grades 21 and 22 received PKR 13.5 million in bonuses.
The report states that, under the law, federal employees can only be granted a special bonus for extraordinary work, and the Prime Minister had directed in 2020 that the Finance Division or the ECC could not approve such bonuses.
The report indicates that issuing four bonuses in a year, equivalent to the employees’ basic salaries, is against the law. Furthermore, to evade income tax, the Ministry of Finance issued the bonuses via demand drafts instead of cross-checks. By not including these bonuses in the salary, the officers’ income tax brackets were kept lower, and the Ministry of Finance issued the bonuses without the federal cabinet’s approval.
