KARACHI, Dec 2: The Fishermen Cooperative Society, one of the oldest NGO and a representative body of fishermen, is faced with a serious financial problem owing to over-staffing in the body.
The financial crisis has led to non-payment of salaries to the staff. About 400 people were employed in the FCS during the last two months.
Sources said these persons were employed hastily without taking into consideration the financial condition of the body and its administrative needs.
An official confirmed that some of the employees could not get salaries for two months as their credentials are yet to be confirmed.
The FCS, a non-governmental organization, is already providing employment to more than 300 people who are performing different functions in Karachi Fish Harbour.
Sources confirmed that more than 400 people, ranging from official ranks to lower cadres, were appointed in the FCS to fill the administrative vacuum created because of the departure of naval personnel.
It is learnt that these appointments were either made on the recommendations of the FCS directors or government functionaries in contravention of the FCS chairman’s directives and ignoring an approved list which is duly sanctioned at a board of directors’ meeting held some time back.
Though the employment issue was discussed many a times in the FCS in the past because of increasing volume of the work in the port, no decision could be taken because of financial constraints.
With the induction of naval personnel in the Karachi Fish Harbour, a visible improvement has been witnessed in the performance of the harbour as a result the income of the Society had substantially increased.
The Navy-controlled administration, held by a commodore, deployed more than 70 naval personnel who performed security and other administrative functions. The sudden departure of the navy personnel from the harbour created a vacuum.
The situation forced the current FCS chairman to relax the rules on employment to meet the administrative needs of the Society and to provide jobs to the unemployed youths of the fishermen community.
The minister, it is learnt, took the FCS elected directors into confidence by calling a meeting of the board of directors of the society and fixed a quota for each director.
However, the problem of over-employment emerged when some of the directors surpassed their fixed quota and employed more people.
It is learnt that every director was allowed to recommend three applicants for jobs, but everyone recommended than 10 to 20 or more.
Some of the directors, it is further learnt, employed 20 to 40 persons, totally ignoring the target fixed at the meeting of the board.
At the same time, some government functionaries, too, crossed the limit.
The fisheries officials and public representatives of fishermen communities in Karachi will meet on Wednesday to take up the issue of over-employment in the Fishermen Cooperative Society.
Sources said that the FCS chairman, Sardar Manzoor Panwar, who is holding the
port folio of Provincial Minister for Livestock and Fisheries
has called the Society’s
supreme body to discuss the thorny issue which has raised many brows, including the FCS directors.
