KOHAT: The tehsil municipal administration (TMA) here has failed to pay the salaries amounting to Rs240 million since Sept 2021 for the 330 sanitation workers who are on deputation with Water Supply and Sanitation Company (WSSC) under a 20 years agreement, official sources said.

The TMA staff was transferred to the sanitation company, which started functioning in Kohat nearly a decade ago, with the provision of a 15 per cent pay increase every year and deputation allowance, WSSC deputy general manager Tahir Afif told this correspondent.

He said tehsil municipal officer Amin Gul was called the other day by WSSC chief executive Arif Rauf to convey that the company was already overburdened and the staff protested every month for delays in the payment. He was asked to arrange the salaries regularly so that the sanitation work was not hampered.

The sanitation staff had staged a protest early this month and threatened to stop work after which half the amount was paid to the employees.

Tahir Afif said that the unpaid salaries were accumulating and they had to pay the salaries for the TMA. The tehsil municipal officer was not available for comments despite repeated calls.

APPOINTMENTS: MPA Ghazan Jamal from Orakzai has asked the youth and tribal elders protesting against alleged illegal appointments in the health department to adopt the legal course of action if they have reservations about the government procedure.

Chairing a meeting of youth, lower Orakzai chairman Maulana Tariq Mauvia, DHO Dr Adnan and tribesmen on Wednesday, Mr Jamal said that they did try to make the appointments without theETEA test, but it was not possible.

He asked them to avoid levelling baseless charges of corruption and clarified that all the appointments were being made according to the criteria mentioned in the advertisement.

He said only those candidates passing the Etea test would be employed.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2022