April 29, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 22, 1429

LARKANA, April 28: The action committee of the sacked employees of the United Bank Limited has called upon the government to reinstate over four thousand employees in the light of a Federal Service Tribunal’s decision.

Speaking at a press conference here on Sunday, the committee’s chairman Mohammed Ramzan Sahto and coordinator Khadim Hussain Hulio alleged that the Nawaz Sharif government had sacked the employees without giving them time or assigning any reason on 13 October, 1997.

The employees, promoted in 1994 and recruited during Ms Benazir Bhutto’s tenure, were shunted under an excuse of rightsizing and downsizing by the then president of UBL, Zubir Soomro.

They said that amounted to the economic murder of thousands of families of the employees.

The favoured officials were just transferred and absorbed in the computer section while others were sacked, they said while adding that, in Larkana region 82 employees were sacked.

The Sindh High Court had referred the matter to the Federal Service Tribunal which in its verdict in August 1998 had asked the UBL management to immediately reinstate the sacked employees but the management did not follow the orders, they said.

On the one hand the UBL high-ups refused to comply with the orders of the tribunal while on the other it hired consultants at higher remunerations, they claimed.

They said, later Mr Nawaz Sharif had ordered the reinstatement of the sacked employees but again the refusal came from the then president of the UBL.

They also referred to their meeting with PPP leader Benazir Bhutto who was a bitter opponent of sacking of employees and had assured them of reinstatement of all the retrenched employees if PPP came to power.

They appealed to PPP co-chairperson Asif Zardari, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani to come to their rescue and reinstate the sacked employees of the UBL.

PROTEST: A large number of successful candidates hailing from Larkana and Qambar-Shahdadkot districts who had cleared tests conducted by the IBA for recruitment as schoolteachers staged a protest against delay in their appointments on Sunday.

They took out a procession and marched on main roads of city. They were holding banners and chanting slogans and reached outside the press club.

Hadi Bakhsh Bhatti, Masood Ahmed Memon and others who were leading the protesters said that the Sindh government in 2003 and 2007, conducted tests through the Institute of Business Administration and results were announced.

However, the rulers when could not succeeded in recruiting their favoured persons blocked the whole process, they said.

They said 150 high schoolteachers, 200 junior, and 350 primary schoolteachers had qualified the test from Larkana and Qambar-Shahdadko districts.

They called for giving them offer orders to accommodate them in education department as early as possible or they would widen their protest and would go on hunger strike unto death.