PESHAWAR: With Christians celebrating Easter today (Sunday), sanitation workers of the public sector Water and Sanitation Services Peshawar have complained about a delay in salary payment and said the lack of money amid record inflation has dampened their enthusiasm for the religious festival.

“It is Easter Eve — something of chand raat [the night before the Muslim festival of Eidul Fitr] — but I am home without any money to buy my children clothes and shoes for tomorrow,” WSSP sanitation worker Aurangzaib Masih told Dawn.

Mr Masih’s voice cracked up as he tried to keep his composure.

He said his children didn’t know or care about why their father hadn’t been paid, and just wanted to celebrate Easter like others.

Say they don’t have money to mark religious festival

Chairman of the All Municipal Worker Union WSSP Riaz Khan said the government-owned utility had 4,500 employees, including sanitation workers, tubewell operators, Class-IV employees, and ministerial staff members.

He said around 1,600 of those employees belonged to the Christian community who would celebrate Easter festival on Sunday.

“The company hasn’t paid salary to those employees ahead of their religious festival, which is an act of injustice,” he said.

Mr Khan said the delay in payment of salary to WSSP workers was beyond his understanding.

He said the WSSP’s sanitation workers observed a complete strike on Saturday to press for the immediate release of their salary to enjoy the festival.

The union chairman, however, said tubewell operators showed up at work to supply water to residents in the Muslim month of fasting.

He claimed that the WSSP’s top bosses spent most of the funds on themselves but didn’t ensure payment of salary to the employees on time.

Mr Khan said those workers were paid in the middle of every month.

A sanitation worker said he and his colleagues cleaned up toilets and performed other cleanliness duties but the company didn’t pay them salary ahead of Easter to deprive them and their families of celebrations

“Easter will be colorless as we can celebrate it with empty pockets. We cannot face our children, who are demanding Eidi [money given away to children on festivals),” he said.

The worker blamed his and family’s misery on the WSSP’s top management.

He said that the delay in salary payments, which had been happening for the last few months, had forced workers into paying electricity bills after the due date with a fine.

A tubewell operator told Dawn that in the presence of unprecedented inflation, the nonpayment of salary had doubled his financial problems like other workers of the company.

He said members of the sanitation staff boycotted duty, so garbage wasn’t collected from the provincial capital causing it to pile up on the streets and dumpsites to become an eyesore.

“As salary payments face delays on a regular basis, we have to borrow money from relatives to buy essential items,” he said.

WSSP chief executive officer Hasan Nisar was not available despite repeated attempts.

However, a senior company official blamed financial problems for the issue.

He told Dawn that the provincial government used to provide a “grant” to the WSSP on a quarterly basis but that hadn’t been happening for the last six months.

“The WSSP moved the official file for the release of salary funds on March 3 but the sluggish ways of the local government and finance departments to process it has delayed payments,” he said.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2023