ISLAMABAD: Salaries of around 18,000 contractual and permanent employees of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) could not be transferred to their accounts on Monday.

Contrary to the tradition of the civic body, the salaries are not likely to get transferred even on Tuesday - the last working day of the month.

However, the top management of the civic body denied that there was any financial crisis. It tried to blame the

PTI-PAT sit-ins for the delay in the inflows of funds to the CDA.

The monthly salary and perks expenditure of the CDA is around Rs360 million but the inflows are said to be around Rs240 million. Like the previous month, the civic agency is likely to utilise some amount from the separate account of Park Enclave on the payment of salaries.

“There is no financial crisis but the main reason for some troubles in recent times was the PTI and PAT dharnas as smaller heads like outdoor advertisements and other collections suffered during the sit-ins,” said an official of the finance wing.

He added that commercial auctions had not been conducted for almost one year which created a minor gap in the inflows.

But the official declined to acknowledge that commercial auctions and the inflows from small heads had suffered due to the ongoing work on the metro bus project.

A CDA spokesman expressed the confidence that the salaries would be released on March 31 and April 1 as the civic body had a surplus amount.

“There is no legal lacuna if the amount is diverted from the head of Park Enclave or any other project, because ultimately that is the CDA money.”

He said the management had decided to establish separate accounts of projects only to oversee them properly.

“An amount of Rs1.5 billion is needed for the infrastructure work at Park Enclave and there is no delay in the payment to the contractor,” he added. “Besides, Rs120 million will be available on April 4 in terms of installments for the commercial auction held last year.”

Meanwhile, the employees feared a repetition of the 2010-13 financial crisis faced by the civic body. The CDA Union general secretary, Chaudhary Yasin, said it was the responsibility of the authority to ensure the timely payment of salaries.

“If there is such a situation, the worst sufferers are the low-scale employees,” he said. However, he added that the situation was not bad because the next round of commercial auction was expected in April. It is also likely that the balloting for Sector I-15 would be held in the last week of April.

Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2015

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