Islamabad - The Minister for Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) in his last attempt failed to regularise the daily wages of employees of 422 educational institutes of the city, sources said on Tuesday.
Official sources informed The Nation that minister for CADD Dr. Tariq Fazal Chaudhry remained unsuccessful in convincing the bureaucracy of the ministry to finalize and approve the summary sent by FDE.
Sources said that the minister on May 28 held meetings with Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) officials and representatives of Daily Wages Employees Association (DWEA) to prepare and move the summary of their regularization.
“Daily wages employees were given assurance that the summary will be finalized and added in the agenda of the cabinet meeting,” sources said.
However, at eleventh hour a senior official at CADD who recently assumed his charge refused to sign the summary expressing reservations on its legal consequences.
The minister had vowed to put the summary of the regularization of the daily wages employees in the last cabinet meeting as additional agenda item and to get it approved from the cabinet.
“The summary is still in CADD and no development has taken regarding putting it on agenda of the cabinet meeting,” source said. According to the secretary, CADD Saqib Aziz is taking briefings on the regularization of employees and there is no chance of its approval when the government is left with only two days in power.
Sources informed The Nation that the minister made all efforts to resolve the issue of daily wages employees in his last days but the bureaucracy was not convinced of regularizing the above 16 grade employees ignoring the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) recruitment rules.
Around 1800 employees from scale 01 to 17 remained on roads during last five years demanding release of salaries and regularization in their institutions. 1800 employees include 800 teachers and 1000 non-teaching staff.
Islamabad High Court (IHC) had also directed the CADD minister to find a way to address both issues of the teaching employees as the government had hired their services for decades. Sources also added that the recent top-level reshuffle in CADD occurred after differences emerged between the minister and bureaucracy on a number of pending decisions including regularization of daily wages employees.
Earlier, Secretary Azhar Ali Chaudhry was transferred and Muhammad Saqib Aziz a BS-22 officer of Pakistan Administrative Services posted as Secretary Postal Services Division was given the charge of secretary CADD. Additional secretary Jamal Yousaf was replaced with Mathar Niaz Rana a BS-21 officer of Pakistan Administrative Services.
The daily wages employees held a more than 100 days sit-in for approval of their demands and minister formed committees to find the solution but all efforts were in vain.
“The principals of the institutions had banned the entry of the teachers involved in 100-day protest,” source said.
However, the matter was solved after the intervention of acting Director General (DG) FDE Dr. Tariq Masood and the principals were requested principals to accept the teachers again.
Talking to The Nation President DWEA Fahd Meraj said that the summary has not been approved as it was not included in the agenda.
Minister convinced the protesting employees to end their strike as their case will be solved on emergency basis, he said. “However, the summary was prepared at the wrong time and daily wages employees issue remained unsolved in five years,” he said.
Fahd Meraj also said that the minister assured employees of release of their salaries but the promise was not fulfilled.
“Daily wages employees received their last salary on June 1st 2017,” he said.
He also added that if the salaries are not released till June 04, the funds will lapse.
DG FDE Hasnaat Quershi said that the proposal for regularization of daily wages employees was sent to CADD however, he is not aware about the status of the summary in the ministry.