Karachi Administrator Saqib Ahmed Soomro Thursday suspended services of 113 ghost city wardens and said their services would be terminated once legal formalities were completed.
Payment of salaries to all these employees has been stopped forthwith which will save about Rs 30 million a year for Karachi Metropolitan Corporation under the head of salaries.
“Removal of ghost employees has been started in KMC,” the administrator said while talking to media representatives along Secretary Local Government Sindh Imran Atta Soomro at the identification parade of city wardens held at the city wardens headquarters in Gulshan-e-Iqbal where all the wardens were called from the city. Special Secretary Local Government Irfan Memon and other Sindh government officers were also present on this occasion.
Imran Atta Soomro rejected the notion that an action against ghost employees in local government institutions of whole Sindh had anything to do with the Karachi operation. He said the minister for local government had directed for action against ghost employees before the start of Karachi operation.
The administrator said the identification parade would be taken in other departments of KMC as well. “City wardens are deputed on different locations; therefore, they were called here. Those who are absent in the parade will be terminated after inquiring about the reasons for their absence,” he said.
He said over Rs 1 billion were being spent on the payment of salaries and the saving under this head would at least be utilised for timely payment of pensions to the retired employees.