LAHORE, Sept 21: All employees of the Punjab Accountant-General’s Office will start protest from Thursday (today) against non-implementation of the Controller-General Act and upgradation of posts of Punjab government’s treasury officers. Staff Welfare Action Committee president Javaid Iqbal told Dawn on Wednesday all employees would wear black armbands from Sept 22. They would start one hour token pen-down strike from Sept 26 and completely stop work from Oct 6 if their demands were not met by then.

He said the action committee had the support of accountants, assistant accountants and auditors associations of the Punjab. The representatives of all the associations would meet on Sept 28 to finalize arrangements for the province-wide strike from the following day.

“The strike may result in stoppage of salaries, pensions and other payments for the month of October. We trust the over 850,000 Punjab government employees and 350,000 pensioners would forgive us for any inconvenience or problem that we might be creating with our protest,” said Mr Iqbal.

The Controller-General of Accounts Ordinance, he said, was promulgated with effect from July 1, 2001. The ordinance became part of the constitution under the Legal Framework Order of 2002 under which the accounts and pre-audit functions were to be controlled by the federal government.

The CGA Act, he said, had been implemented in the NWFP but the Punjab provincial administration did not implement the law and recently upgraded the cadre of its treasury officers. All the posts of Punjab government treasury officers had been upgraded to BS-18 instead of BS-17.

Mr Iqbal said one finance department officer was recently promoted to BS-20 without NIPA course. The officer, he alleged was holding three BS-18 and two BS-19 posts. “He is holding the BS-18 posts of the deputy secretary Admn and Finance, and treasury inspector besides BS-19 posts of chief inspector of treasuries and the director local fund audit.

The action committee chairman said the account officers made a number of representations to the authorities concerned which were rejected.—Staff Reporter