PM Shehbaz’s ‘Trade Commission’ With Only 5 People to Cost Taxpayers Over Rs. 6 Crore Annually

Contrary to the government’s repeated calls to downsize and streamline public sector expenditure, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has approved the appointment of five high-salaried members to the newly constituted Trade Dispute Resolution Commission (TDRC), a decision that will cost taxpayers Rs. 6 crore per year in salaries alone. According to official notifications, the five-member commission was appointed on August 22, 2025, under the Trade Dispute Resolution Organization (TDRO), which functions under the Ministry of Commerce. Each member will receive a monthly salary of Rs. 10 lakh, under the Management Position (MP-I) scale, in addition to other perks and benefits typically associated with such appointments. The commission’s mandate is to adjudicate long-standing trade-related disputes, a role critics argue could have been effectively handled by existing government officers, eliminating the need for yet another high-cost bureaucratic body. Of the five appointees, three belong to the public sector (Umer Dad Afridi, Javed Iqbal Khan, and Muhammad Hamoodur Rauf), while two are from the private sector (Mohammad Rauf Khan and Riffat Inam Butt). Their appointments are for a term of three years. The creation of the TDRC adds to an already bloated list of commissions and authorities, many of which suffer from overlapping mandates and poor performance accountability. This latest move has sparked concerns that such bodies are increasingly being used as landing spots for political favourites, rather than being established out of genuine functional need. Government critics argue that one capable officer from the Ministry of Commerce could have handled trade dispute resolution, especially in the digital age, without the overhead of a five-member commission and the establishment of a parallel administrative framework. “The government speaks of austerity and downsizing, yet continues to expand the bureaucracy, often without justification,” said a senior official on the condition of anonymity. “What we’re seeing is not reform, it’s window-dressing at the taxpayer’s expense.”