PESHAWAR, June 30: The NWFP assembly has called upon the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to either post its surplus employees working in various camps to other projects or offer them golden handshake before terminating their services. The MPAs made the demand in a resolution tabled by Abdul Akbar Khan of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) and unanimously adopted by the house on Thursday.

The house asked the UNHCR to pay compensation to the health staff serving in its health directorate for the past 23 years.

The mover informed the house that the UNHCR had not paid salaries to paramedics for the past five months. The hapless employees had encamped themselves outside the Peshawar Press Club to press the UNHCR for the acceptance of their demands. One of the employees died during their month-long hunger strike, the house was informed.

Backing the resolution, Anwar Kamal Marwat of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) said that he along with opposition leader Shahzada Gustasip had visited the camp. He said women staff with their toddlers were also present at the hunger-strikers’ camp. He said the hunger-strikers had served in the UNHCR’s health project for over two decades, but their services had been terminated after the commission curtailed its budget.

The lawmakers hoped that the federal government would take up the matter with the UNHCR’s administration in Islamabad and get it resolved on humanitarian grounds.

The house adopted 10 other resolutions, demanding provision of natural gas to the villages of Khattak Nama (Nowshera), Chheri Waziran, Matgola Banda, Jargo Mela (Hangu) and parts of Swat; installation of 100, 200 and 50kv transformers at the sub-divisional level throughout the province; construction of the Chashma Right Bank Canal with a height of 70 feet; completion of the remaining part of the Indus Highway from Gandi Khankhel in Lakki to Dera Ismail Khan; issuance of the no-objection certificate for the construction of Government Technical Vocational College for Women at the site of the Tarbela Dam project in Ghazi; writing of kalma-i-tayyaba on the assembly building; presence of the government employees till 2.30pm in their offices and exemption of local transport from toll tax in Karak.

Earlier, speaking on a point of order, PML’s Qalandar Khan Lohdi said that some people had set ablaze the Mohafiz Khana (land record office) at Abbottabad with the intention of making changes in record of Hazara belt. Rejecting short-circuit as the cause of fire, he demanded a judicial inquiry into the matter.

Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani of the PML and Shahzada Gustasip endorsed the demand.

Information Minister Asif Iqbal Daudzai said the government had already initiated an inquiry into the incident.