Contract employees appeal to CM for salaries

NOWSHERA: As many as 400 field clerks from the Zakat and Ushr Department of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government have not been paid for over a year which has left them worried.

Speaking at a press conference here on Sunday, the contract employees of the Ushr and Zakat Department from the Nowshera district, including Fazal Subhan, Amjad, Abdur Raheem and Nouman said that the field clerks were appointed for Rs17,000 per month salary.

They said as per the provincial government rules, the minimum wage was Rs36,000 a month while in other provinces the same was Rs37,000.

The contract employees said that they had to visit far-off areas of the district as group secretary Zakat to carry out the survey. We remain in contact with the local chairman and retain the record in order, they added.

The field workers said that though the Zakat and Ushr Department had appointed 400 field clerks as contract employees, the number of such workers in the Nowshera district stood at 24.

The contract employees said they had not been paid for the last 14 months despite repeated appeals.

They said they had been denied salaries under various contexts such as the absence of a minister for Zakat and that the Provincial Zakat Council had not been constituted yet.

The field clerks pointed out that if there was no minister to head the department or no Provincial Zakat Council had been formed thus far, even then Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur had the charge of the Zakat Department.

They appealed to the chief minister to take pity on the plight of the 400 field clerks and their families and order the release of salaries to them as they were facing extreme problems in the face of the skyrocketing prices.