PESHAWAR: The Provincial Civil Service Officers Association has opposed posting of federal government officers on the seats of provincial departments and warned to announce nationwide pen down strike if its demands are not accepted forthwith.

Speaking at a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Monday, the association’s president Fahd Ikram Qazi said the whole provincial bureaucracy had been wearing black armbands for the past 16 days to push for acceptance of its demands, but the government was yet to take any step.

He said the chief minister and chief secretary were not taking the association’s demands seriously.

He pointed out that after the 18th Constitutional Amendment the posting of federal government officers on the seats of provincial departments was illegal.

“We have written letters to Prime Minister Imran Khan, but he also avoids resolving the long-awaited issue,” he complained, saying the federal government had formed a civil service reforms committee to find solution to the problems faced by the officials at the provincial level but the body lacked representation of the PCS officers.

Mr Qazi said all the provinces had hundreds of vacancies and if the federal government implemented its new formula then the federating units would be deprived of their due rights.

Published in Dawn, November 20th, 2018