The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) has been able to pay long-due salaries to its deprived officers at the eleventh hour before Eidul Fitr.

However, the financial woes of the cash-strapped city’s municipal authority continues, which would likely to further cause financial miseries to the KMC employees in the coming months in terms of undue delays in the release of salaries.

“We have been able to release salaries to our officers on Saturday by getting over-drafts from banks and also some of our austerity measures in the administrative affairs helped us in arranging finances,” said the Metropolitan Commissioner of KMC Matanat Ali Khan.

The KMC officers of grade-16 and above had been awaiting till Friday due salaries for the month of July causing them serious financial troubles in preparation and shopping for Eidul Fitr for their families.

The KMC commissioner said that undue delay in disbursement of salaries this month was due to non-release of Rs525 million grant-in-aid from the Sindh government, which was generally used for payment of salaries to the employees. This grant-in-aid could go up to Rs630 million every month in order to account for the recent 20 per cent recent increase in salaries of the government employees.