GUJRAT: Gujrat Municipal Corporation (GtMC) has been unable to release the salaries of its staff as well as making the payments of utility bills of its water supply turbines and streetlights in the current month of November.

The Gujranwala Electric Power Company (Gepco) has also issued the disconnection notice to the GtMC for latter’s failure to pay the dues of Rs70 million.

These problems have surfaced after the arrest of three key officials, including municipal officer (finance) Rauf Ashraf Warraich, by the Anti-Corporation establishment (ACE) following the registration of a case against eight officials in Rs40m scam of withdrawal of cash through stolen cheques on Nov 8.

However, the Punjab government could not appoint any officer as a replacement of these officials particularly MO (finance) and auditor of the MC since signatures of both these officials are required for the approval of bills payment.

Official sources said Gepco had served a notice on GtMC on Tuesday asking for the payment of Rs70m bill of electricity used by the civic agency.

Moreover, they said usually the salaries of staff were paid by 10th to 15th of every month but so far the staffers were unpaid causing a grave concern among them.

It is learnt that the incumbent chief officer of Gujrat MC Khaliq Daad Gara too has been working on additional charge basis since he was posted as municipal officer (regulations) whereas many other posts in other municipalities are also lying vacant for long.

An official of Gujrat MC said the respective authorities in the provincial local government department had not been taking the issue of important vacant posts seriously.

Earlier, the Gepco authorities had disconnected the electricity supply to two water supply turbines in the city due to non-payment of dues; however, later on the supply was restored after senior administrative officials assured the payment of dues in this regard.

When contacted, Gujrat Deputy Commissioner Safdar Virk said the matter of vacant posts in Gujrat MC and other local government departments in the district had already been brought into the notice of the authorities concerned and hopefully the seats might be filled soon.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2024