HYDERABAD, April 28: The Sindh Highways Contractors Association has complained that due to non-availability of cheques in the treasury office, their payments have been withheld as a result of which they have been compelled to suspend the construction work.

At a news conference at the press club here on Monday, the president of the association, Rafique Ahmed, general secretary Babu Shams Memon, and others said that they had approached treasury officers, who had informed them that they had not been provided cheque books by the accountant general Sindh.

They demanded that an inquiry should be held in the matter and cheque books should be issued to the treasury officers failing which they would not be able to continue the work.

They further said that if they were not paid their outstanding dues budget for the current financial year, running into billion of rupees, would lapse.

Answering questions, they said that work on more than 400 highway schemes besides hundreds of other schemes of other departments was in progress which was in doldrums as the contractors were not receiving payments.

They said that in all there were more than 80,000 approved contractors in Sindh registered with the highway department not to mention others who were registered with other departments.

Answering another question, they said that they were made payment on weekly basis according to the progress of work and added that no payment had been made since April 01.