ISLAMABAD: Eleven school computer labs may not be functional after the summer break as employees, awaiting their salaries for the last seven months, have threatened to quit their jobs.

A computer teacher, Saqib Hanif, is among 89 other employees hired by the Federal Directorate for Education (FDE) in 2012 to run school computer labs. He told Dawn that these employees have decided to go to court over the matter and if they are not paid their salaries, they would not be returning to the schools after summer vacation.

According to documents, available with Dawn, 24 computer science teachers, 15 labs in-charge and 50 lab attendants were hired by the FDE under an information technology project titled ‘Provision of 11 Computer Labs in FG institutions’.

According to the plan, following the completion of the two-year project, the FDE was to regularise the services of the employees. However, when their contracts ended in December 2014, the employees stopped receiving their salaries.

Employees have not been paid for the last seven months

Some officials in the FDE held the Planning Commission responsible for the delay in finalising the case.

“According to the plan, after the completion of the project the salaries of the employees were to be shifted from the development side to the recurring side, which means that they would be given permanent status. We moved the case to the Planning Commission in 2014, before the end of the project but they failed to finalise it,” said a senior FDE official, requesting anonymity.

He said bureaucratic issues should not deprive the FDE schools of their computer labs.

“If the Commission does not make a decision, the labs would have to be shut down after the summer break as employees have already refused to work,” he said.

The official said that the shutting down of the labs would disrupt the education of hundreds of students.

“If the Planning Commission has any objection to this project, they should inform the FDE rather than hold the files. It is unfair to these employees who have been awaiting their salaries and regularisation of services for months,” he said.

Acting DG FDE Sahib Raza Hasnain Kharal told Dawn that efforts were being made to ensure that the Commission makes a decision soon.

“Hopefully, the issue would be resolved soon,” he said.

Saifur Rehman, assistant chief (planning) at the Planning Commission, passed the buck to another official and said that the case for regularisation of services of these employees was approved by him, a few months back. “The file was sent to Monitoring and Evaluation deputy director.

“There is no delay on my part,” he said and added that in the next few days, the commission will finalise the case.

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2015

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