Rs500,000 to be given to polio workers in Malir snatched

Karachi
Polio eradication efforts in Karachi suffered another setback on Thursday when half a million rupees drawn from a bank to be distributed among polio vaccinators in Malir Town at the end of a three-day polio vaccination drive were snatched from two health officials in Model Colony.
Two Malir Town Health Department officials had withdrawn Rs506,500 from the National Bank of Pakistan in Malir City and were riding to work on a motorbike when two helmeted motorcyclists held them at gunpoint on Hashim Raza Road near the railway crossing and robbed them of the money.
The money was to be distributed among 500 vaccinators and lady health workers of Malir Town who had vaccinated under-fives for three days in various union councils, but on the last day of the campaign they were told that their remuneration had been robbed.
Town Health Officer Masood Solangi said the administration had filed a complaint at the Model Colony police station as well as informed senior health officials about the robbery and asked for financial assistance so that the vaccinators could be paid.
SHO Ahsan Zulfiqar sees no connection between the robbery and the polio eradication campaign, as “cash vans and employees of government institutions or private organisations have been robbed in the past while taking the money from the bank to the office”.
Expanded Programme on Immunisation Sindh Deputy Programme Manager Durr-e-Naz Jamal said the vaccinators would get their remuneration no matter what.
“Around 50 percent of the payment for vaccinators comes from the World Health Organisation and the remaining from the Sindh government. In case the money goes missing before reaching the vaccinators, it is the responsibility of the government to compensate them.”
The vaccinators, however, are not so optimistic: they said the health officials usually delayed their payment or provided it to them in instalments. “Now that the money has been robbed, I fear it would take several weeks to arrange the funds because government institutions don’t work so swiftly,” said vaccinator Samina Bibi.