PESHAWAR: Retired employees not paid pension, gratuity
By Our Correspondent
PESHAWAR, Aug 13: The administration of Peshawar Town I has not paid gratuity and pension to more than 50 retired lower grade employees despite getting funds as operational grant from the district government, according to sources.
The class IV employees have been running form pillar to post since long to get their dues.
The total amount to be paid to the retired employees is Rs6.5 million. In a couple of cases, employees retired in 2001 have yet to be paid their dues. Heirs of a woman employee who died in October 2001 have also not received the gratuity and pension.
Chief minister Akram Khan Durrani’s instructions to the district government of last year for clearing the dues of 37 retired employees, whose cases had been processed several months earlier, remain to be fulfilled due mainly to the town administration’s inability to mobilise the required funds. Another 11 cases pertain to those employees who have died.
Officials said the town government had inherited the problem from its predecessor.
The town administration has a staff of over 2,300.
Town I Nazim Shaukat Ali held ‘unjust’ distribution of financial resources among the towns by the district government responsible for the problems faced by the retired employees.
He said that about 80 per cent of the district’s area fell in his town but it was not allocated funds accordingly.
The district coordination officer claimed that the city district government provided adequate funds to the town I administration for meeting its establishment cost and development expenditure.
“We have doubled the operational grant for the town in the current year’s budget,” he said.
Chairman of the CBA of United Municipal Workers’ Union, Malik Naveed, says that appeals to President Pervez Musharraf and Chief Minister Durrani to resolve the issue have remained fruitless.
The union leaders observed a hunger strike on June 26, which ended after the district nazim assured them that the issue would be resolved to their satisfaction.
However, none of the nazims of the four towns attended a meeting called by the district nazim on July 10 to discuss the issue.
Mr Naveed said the chief minister had issued instructions in November 2005 to the district government to enhance the operational grant for the town I administration to enable it to fulfil its responsibility towards the retired employees.
“The district government did not increase the grant to the level ordered by the chief minister,” said the town nazim.
He said the administration was keen to clear dues of all the retired employees subject to improve its financial position.
