Government of Pakistan restores two weekly holidays in public sector offices

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered that public sector offices would also work on Saturdays, however, the decision was overturned after protest from the employees.

The Pakistan government on Tuesday restored two weekly holidays for public offices as it adopted a raft of austerity measures to cut expenditures.

On the first day in office, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on April 16 had ordered that public sector offices would also work on Saturdays and the weekly off would be limited to Sundays only. However, the decision was considered to be taken in haste without taking the operational cost. It also angered employees who staged protests.

"Saturday offs have been restored. These are challenging times and it has been done to control this crisis," Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said during a press briefing after the Cabinet meeting chaired by the Prime Minister.

Other measures decided by the Cabinet include, slashing the petrol quota of government officials and the Cabinet by 40% - a measure aimed to please angry masses as people were demanding cuts in the free fuel used by the officials after record price hike in petroleum products badly hit the poor.

"So while we are asking people to sacrifice, we have begun these measures with the Cabinet in order to pass on as little burden to the people as possible," Aurangzeb said.

The Cabinet also discussed a proposal to allow public sector workers to operate from home on Fridays to further cut the running cost of government offices.

But instead of taking a quick decision, the Cabinet set up a committee to devise a mechanism so "efficiency is not affected much and how we may benefit from it in an effective manner", said Aurangzeb, adding the committee would present recommendations in the next Cabinet meeting.