Senate panel deeply concerned about employees on contract, daily wages

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Functional Committee on Devolution and Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat on Thursday expressed serious concern over the plight of hundreds of employees of the Workers Welfare Board and Chak Shahzad General Hospital and doctors of PIMS Cardiac Centre and daily wage teachers of certain government schools and colleges in Islamabad.

These have neither been regularised nor have their salaries been paid despite passage of several months. The committees, during their separate meetings here at the Parliament House, regretted that while teachers and doctors were highly respected in the civilised world, here they were facing uncertainty about their future.

During the Senate Committee on Cabinet Secretariat meeting, its Chairman Senator Muhammad Talha Mehmood regretted that teachers were accorded due respect in every civilised society but notwithstanding the committee’s recommendations and decisions of other constitutional forums, they continued to be ignored.

The committee witnessed a dramatic development when the committee members walked out on the absence of secretaries of the Establishment Division and the Cabinet Division and returned only after the Minister for Capital Administration and Development Division Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry made his way to the committee meeting. 

Senator Talha pointed out that hundreds of contractual and daily wagers had already been regularised and hence saw no problem or hitch in regularisation of the daily wage and contractual teachers. 

Chairing of the Senate Functional Committee meeting, Senator Mir Kabeer Ahmad Muhammad Shahi deplored the miseries of the welfare board employees. The committee decided and then wrote to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister and the chief secretary, recommending early regularisation of the boards’ 1,774 employees and payment of their salaries too.

Senator Shahi took exception to the absence of the secretary finance and said that such an important matter was being discussed while the secretary finance was away and he called his presence during the committee’s next meeting.

The committee members noted that the employees, who were working, had been removed in one go and hence, plunging so many families into mental agony and financial crisis.  They emphasised that the issue of 663 employees, who were pointed out to be inducted in violation of the rules, should be sorted out, keeping in view transparency and merit.

On this the committee was informed that a decision on this particular matter would be made by the relevant governing body while Peshawar High Court had restored the previous board. Secretary Labour Khyber Pakhtunkhwa revealed that some record had been lost in blaze while other was missing. 

He contended that the extension in the service of 1,774 employees would be approved by the concerned board and then the federal government would be approached for release for funds for this purpose. Those, who attended the meeting, included Senators Tahir Hussain Mashhadi, Nisar Muhammad, Taj Haider, Attaur Rehman, Muhammad Ali Saif, ILyas Bilour and Ayesha Raza Farooq.