July 28, 2008	Monday	Rajab 24, 1429

NAWABSHAH, July 27: A group of employees of the United Bank Ltd retrenched in 1997, have appealed to Pakistan People’s Party co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to fulfill the promise made by Ms Benazir Bhutto and direct the bank management to reinstate them.

At a news conference here on Sunday, office-bearers of the Sindh-Balochistan chapter of the Sacked UBL Officers Action Committee said that over 6000 officers promoted during the second term of Benazir Bhutto in 1994, were retrenched on October 12,1997 by the Nawaz Sharif government.

The action committee leaders Qurban Ali Memon, Wali Mohammed Memon and Syed Zulqarnain Shah said that the management of UBL forcibly expelled thousands of officers without any intimation and even did not give them due benefits as per service rules.

They further said that other nationalised banks offered voluntarily retirement scheme with high benefits during the same period of Nawaz government.

They said the retired employees of NBP, MCB and other banks were living a peaceful and happy life while the retrenched UBL officers were experiencing difficulties.

They said the sacked employees included over 4,500 officers from Sindh, 1400 to Punjab and remaining from NWFP and Balochistan.

Out of them many had died, a number of them reached the age of superannuation and only 1600 of them would be reinstated, they said.