Govt employees protest unbridled inflation

TIMERGARA: Hundreds of government employees from various departments on Tuesday staged a protest rally in Lower Dir district on the call of all government employees’ grand alliance (AGEGA) against unbridled inflation to demand an increase in salaries.

The protesting government employees gathered at the education complex in Balambat and later marched on the road to Timergara Press Club. The protesters were holding banners and placards inscribed with slogans against inflation and in support of their demands.

Addressing the protesters, the AGEGA provincial leader Syed Mohammad Shah Badshah, district president of All Pakistan Clerks’ Association Mohammad Saleem, district president of school officers’ association Gul Rehman, district president of All Class IV employees Ubaidur Rehman, Safiuddin and others demanded the federal and provincial government to take notice of their miseries and announce immediate increase in the salaries of all government employees, regularization of 48000 ad hoc employees recruited after 2017 and 25 per cent ad hoc relief to government employees. They critisised the current government for formulating anti-employees policies on the dictation of the IMF.

They said the federal ministers, including Ali Muhammad Khan, Pervez Khattak and others, had promised to accept their demands during a sit-in at Islamabad on February 11. Besides, they said, chief minister Mahmood Khan himself had also announced a 25 percent disparity allowance for government employees on the basis of their running basic pay but so far none of those promises had been fulfilled.

They said that the government should immediately increase the salaries of government employees or else they would stage a rally in Islamabad.