SAHIWAL: Around 220 employees of the University of Sahiwal (UoS) from the BPS-1 to 20 will not be able to get their monthly salaries before Eidul Azha. Such employees include 120 from teaching faculty, 82 from administrative staff and 18 from the lower cadre staff.

Dawn learnt from sources that total salary of all these employees is around Rs11.2m. Although the university treasurer’s office and female teaching faculty separately took up the issue with Pro-Chancellor/Chairman Syndicate and Higher Education Minister Yassir Humayun Sarfraz and Begum Sarwar Parveen, the wife of governor, but there is hardly any chance of release of salaries as yet due to vacant posts of vice chancellor, registrar and treasurer are laying vacant, there is no one to decide the matter.

The end of tenure of additional charge of the VC to University of Okara VC Zakria Zakir on June 22, non-approval of budget for financial year 2021-22 from Financial and Planning Committee and non-completion of the syndicate were the other causes of the salary issue. The sources in the university fear that the employees may not get salaries for the next three months.

A source close to the situation told Dawn that Dr Muhammad Ayub, the additional treasurer (salaries), conveyed the employees concerns to the Higher Education Department through a letter on July 6. The letter says that as per rules, the employees’ salary expenditures can only be passed after approval of the syndicate that is not complete. Only three syndicate members are working while the names of five new members, including two females and three males, are lying pending with the CM Secretariat.

It is learnt that a letter has been sent for approval to the HED and the CM.

The sources said that two days back, an eight-member female teaching faculty delegation met with Sarwar Parveen, the wife of governor, at the Governor House in Lahore to share with her their concern on the salaries issue.

A member of the delegation told Dawn the governor’s office senior administrative staff had assured them for early resolving crucial matters, including the appointment of permanent VC.

The employees working in Grade 1-10, 120 in total, are most concerned at the non-payment of salaries. A lab attendant and office boy told this scribe that all the 120 employees were mostly recruited by the university from a private company and if the company would not be paid Rs2.5m, the employees won’t get salaries.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2021