Despite clear orders of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), the high-ups of cabinet division and other concerned departments seem reluctant to decide the regularisation issue of contractual employees, who served in programmes started by the health ministry for prevention and control of hepatitis before its devolution.
Many of the contractual employees who had served in different health related programs, were sacked through verbal orders after the devolution of the health ministry instead of rendering their services to other government departments. To challenge the unjust move by the government authorities some 38 employees of the health ministry moved to the IHC against the termination of their services and to get regularised under the policy announced by the Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. After which on December 14th, a single member bench of IHC comprising Justice Azeem Khan Afridi ordered the secretary Cabinet Division and Secretary Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) and sub-committee for control of regularisation of daily wages employees to settle the issue of the said employees as per the policy announced by PM.
However, some of the employees who filed petition in IHC approached Pakistan Today and said that even after the clear directives of the IHC authorities concerned were paying no heed towards their issue. “We are running from pillar to post for getting our services regularised as PM himself announced to do so but it is beyond our comprehension as to why the secretary cabinet as well as other concerned officials are dredging their feet from implementing the court and PM orders,” said Amanat Ali an employee while talking to this scribe.
Sharing their plight, Amanat said that for the last nine months they had not received their salaries and now they have planned to file a contempt of court petition against the same respondents in the IHC.
The poor employees said further that the PM had announced even to regularise the services of daily wages employees but despite serving for more than seven years in the government departments they cannot get regularized since they do not have connection in relevant government quarters. According to the policy approved by the prime minister, all employees within one year of government service were to be regularised, he told Pakistan Today.
Sources in the cabinet division told Pakistan Today that the matter of regularisation of the employees who served in health ministry’s programmes before its devolution would be decided by the sub-committee of the parliament. He said that the cabinet secretary had marked the summary in this regard to the section officer. He added that the main hurdle between all the processes was that the sub-committee of parliament has yet to receive the summary in this regard.
They claimed that the summary for the regularisation of the said employees would be placed before the committee soon after which the fate of their services would be decided.
However, Amanat Ali said further that they had contacted several political leaders including Chaudhry Shujaat and Minister for Religious Affairs Khursheed Shah and the political leaders also assured them of their regularisation, adding that all the pledges made by them are yet to be materialised.
The employees demanded of the Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to resolve the problems being faced by them and to regularise their services on priority basis.
Crime rate declines in city: Police: The Islamabad police on Sunday claimed that crime rate has decreased in the first two months of 2012 as compared to the corresponding period of the last year.
“The police officers remained firm against the activities of mischievous elements and emerged successful during the ongoing year especially last two months in countering criminal elements, murderers, drug pushers, robbers and criminal gangs,” says a press release issued here on Sunday by IGP office.
It said that a decline was witnessed in the cases of murder, robberies, burglaries, theft, vehicles’ lifting and snatching. Comparison of data of crime rate in the months of January and February this year revealed that murder, armed robbery, auto-theft cases and burglary cases in the city declined during these months as compared to the corresponding period of the last year.
