Over 1000 TMA Employees Of Merged District Without Pay For Eight Months

Muhammad Faheem

Over a thousand of tehsil municipal administrations (TMAs) employees in the merged districts are without pay for past eight months due to non-release of funds by the provincial finance department.

Sources told TNN that the Local Council Board (LCB) has thrice requested the finance department thrice; however, the funds have not yet to be released. The delay in release of funds has also put the operations of TMAs in question.

Local government department officials said that the employees of only Khar and Sadda TMAs of merged districts were regularly getting their salaries; however, rest of 23 TMAs situation was troubling as around 1000 staff has stopped working. Some of these TMAs are not paying salaries for past four to five months while majority were not getting their salaries for past eight months.

LG department official said that last year a grant of Rs 280 million was approved for the LG department; however, only Rs 20 million was released. During the current fiscal, even a penny has not been released. The official said that a meager sum is allotted to the TMAs for current expenditures including payment of rent; however, salaries cannot be paid with this.

On the other hand, financial troubles are limited to merged districts as about 90 TMAs of the settled districts are also facing a financial crunch. These TMAs have not paid November salary to their employees thus far.

To be able to pay salaries to TMAs employees, LCB has asked the provincial government to give it Rs 2.5 billion. Source said that currently 90 out of 131 TMA s are facing financial crunch. Sources said that LG department has forwarded a summary to the finance department, seeking Rs 2.5 billion to meet financial needs of 131 TMAs of the province.

KP government had set up sanitation companies in seven major cities of the province including Peshawar, Bannu, Kohat, Mardan, Swat, Abbottabad and Dera Ismail Khan.

On the other hand, these companies and TMAs have come to face to face over distribution of assets and KP LG Officers Association has also announced to employ all means to protect TMAs assets from sanitation companies.

In a meeting of the KP LG Officers Association chaired by the provincial chairman Nisar Khan, the employees vowed to protect the assets of TMAs at any cost. The meeting decided to hold general body meetings at divisional level all over the province.

The meeting also condemned the shenanigans of sanitation companies and their maltreatment of employees.

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