PESHAWAR: The sacked employees of Fata Disaster Management Authority have threatened to launch a protest movement if they are not reinstated.

Addressing a press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Thursday, the former employees of FDMA led by project manager Mian Shakirullah said that the director general of the authority sacked them without issuing them any show-cause notice.

Mian Shakirullah said that governor inspection team had initiated probe into reports of a ‘fake training’ held in Naran in September 2017 under a sub-project of FDMA.

He said that 15 employees had been directed to refund Rs1 million.

He alleged that the people involved in the ‘fake training’ were still working at the authority but 22 employees working in Orakzai tribal district were terminated in the case.

“We have the entire record and proofs of the training held in our supervision,” he said. He added that government should constitute a fact finding commission to know their credibility.

“The fake training incident took place in 2017 and staff for our project was hired in January 2018,” said Mr Shakirullah. He claimed that they were sacked without any reason. “If we were not hired for the project at that time then how we could be sacked on the basis of corruption,” he questioned.

He said that the director general was bound to issue them 15-day show cause notice before taking any decision.

He said that of the 22 employees, a woman staffer was appointed hardly three days before her termination. “She is still in shock as to why her name was issued to media for being involved in corruption. We all are educated people and have sufficient experience in our relevant fields but sacking us on false allegations of corruption has badly damaged our reputation. We reserve the right to sue the director general in a court of law,” he added.

Mr Shakirullah said that Azam Khan, the former provincial chief secretary and present principal secretary to prime minister, had issued a circular on August 28, 2018 and advised the government departments against terminating any employee

However, he said, the director general terminated them in violation of the circular on August 31, 2018. He said that the employees were working at a Swiss-funded project SDC and the donor agency had also taken notice of their termination and announced on September 5, 2018 to freeze its account as the workers were sacked without any consultation.

He said that government should take action against the people, who were violating the rules for their personal interests.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2018