THE local government elections for the second phase took place in Sindh on Jan 15, 2023, where I served as an assistant returning officer (ARO). It has now been over a year that we, the AROs, district returning officers (DROs) and returning officers (ROs), still await the payment of our honoraria.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) issued a letter to the provincial election commissioner of Sindh, dated May 23, concerning the payment of honoraria to all DROs, ROs, AROs and their supporting staff.

Following this, the provincial election commissioner sent a letter on June 3 to all district election commissioners in Sindh, requesting details of the officials and their supporting staff.

In compliance, all of us submitted the necessary details as both soft and hard copies to the district election office in Hyderabad. Since then, there has been a complete silence on the matter.

The relevant ECP authorities should take immediate notice of this inordinate delay in the disbursement of honoraria.

Naseer Ahmed Soomro
Hyderabad

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2024