ISLAMABAD, Aug 25: The government is facing resistance to its efforts to reinstate public sector employees who were appointed by the Pakistan People’s Party and sacked by the caretaker and Pakistan Muslim League governments in 1996 and 1997.

Sources said a meeting of the ministerial committee on reinstatement of workers of public sector corporations remained inconclusive on Monday because the petroleum ministry, Pakistan International Airlines and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited did not provide details of such workers. Besides, some members of the committee did not attend the meeting.

Thousands of employees of public sector corporations, autonomous bodies and banks and financial institutions were sacked because they had been appointed allegedly on political grounds.

Presided over by Finance Minister Syed Naveed Qamar, the meeting was attended by ministers for housing and works and labour and manpower, the deputy chairman planning commission and representatives of various public sector organisations and federal ministries.

The sources said the PPP government wanted to reinstate all the sacked workers with full benefits, including 10 years’ salary and their seniority intact. The move will cost billions of rupees at a time when fiscal deficit has gone beyond manageable limits and government’s bank borrowing has touched highest ever levels, forcing it to curtail public sector development programme by more than Rs100 billion within the first quarter of the current fiscal year.

In the absence of complete data about the sacked employees, the finance ministry was facing difficulties to “work out the total financial impact” of their reinstatement, an official statement issued after the meeting said.

The committee directed all the ministries and divisions to provide the required information on a proforma before its next meeting.

The meeting also directed all ministries and divisions to attend the next meeting of the committee along with their managing directors with details about the employees sacked in 1996-97. The committee also asked the ministry of law and justice to thoroughly examine legal aspects of the employees’ reinstatement.

The ministries of law and justice and finance informed the committee that they would not be in a position to give their assessment because the information provided so far was incomplete.

The committee asked all the ministries and divisions to provide full details of sacked employees on the proforma circulated by the finance ministry and those removed through disciplinary action, separately.