ISLAMABAD: Residents of Islamabad’s rural areas have been facing cleanliness issues as hundreds of sanitation workers associated with contractors hired by the CDA stopped work after they were not paid their salaries for three months.

Some of the sanitation workers appealed to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to look into the matter and order the immediate release of their stuck-up pays.

It has been learnt that the two contractors hired by the CDA left their work without paying salaries to hundreds of workers, putting their families in troubles.

On the other hand, citizens are facing lack of cleanliness as no one is collecting garbage from the rural areas. The delay in the payment of salaries to the workers has raised question marks over the CDA’s efficiency as may be it has not released payment to the contractors. The CDA annually spends a whopping three billion rupees on sanitation work but it is never done properly.

“Several officials of CDA have been deputed in the sanitation directorate for years. They always manage their posting in this directorate. It seems massive corruption is taking place in the sanitation directorate. The CDA chairman should engage Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to hold an inquiry,” said an official.

In the urban areas, the CDA collects garbage through its own staff, but it has hired private contractors with machinery for rural areas such as Tarnol and Bhara Kahu where they collect trash and carry out cleanliness work.

When contacted, CDA’s director media Shahid Kiani said: “The issue of non-payment of salary is in the notice of CDA. The payment to the contractors would be made conditional with the payment of salaries to all sanitary workers. If they are unable to pay salaries to the workers, CDA would take action against those contractors and would ensure payments from their bank guarantees,” he said, adding the contacts of the rural areas expired on January 2. He said CDA through its own staff had started picking garbage from rural areas as well.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2025