PESHAWAR: Employees of the Education Monitoring Authority (EMA) on Monday demanded of the provincial government to provide them with their basic rights without delay and warned that if that didn’t happen, they would go on a hunger strike outside the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly.

During a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club, EMA representatives Israr Ahmad, Ishtiaq Ali, Farhan Alam, Zubair Ahmad and Wajid Ahmad resented the issuance of show cause notices to hundreds of the authority’s employees for “raising voice for their rights”.

They said that despite serving for the past 13 years in various parts of the province, including the merged tribal districts, EMA employees had been denied fundamental employment benefits.

The EMA representatives alleged that instead of addressing their demands, EMA Director General Manzoor Afridi had issued show cause notices to employees who urged authorities to grant them due rights.

They said the authority’s workers were ensuring their monitoring of education and other sectors across the province and thus, contributing significantly to improving governance and saving public resources.

The speakers, however, lamented the “absence of a proper service structure, time-scale promotions, pension, contributory provident fund and post-retirement benefits.

They said that employees used their own fuel for field duties and lacked essential IT equipment needed for monitoring tasks.

“We have been performing our duties for over a decade, yet we are treated as daily-wage workers and denied the facilities available to regular government employees,” Mr Israr said.

He also said that several EMA employees, including both men and women, had lost their lives in acts of terrorism and accidents during duty, but their families were neither compensated nor provided with death compensation or pension due to the absence of a formal service structure.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2026