LAHORE, April 11: The Punjab Accountant General has decided to issue commutation cheques to the retired government employees directly from his office to save them from bureaucratic hurdles.

Accountant General Wazir Ahmad Qureshi announced the new procedure for release of commutation cheques among the retired government employees at an open kutchery at his office here on Friday.

He said this procedure had been adopted because of the government departments’ failure to submit commutation bills at the AG’s office even several weeks after it had issued ‘authority’ for the purpose.

He pointed out that the government departments had not been submitting commutation bills against 84 ‘authorities’ issued by his office several weeks ago. The health and education departments had been bothering their employees by delaying submission of their commutation bills, he added.

The AG said the health department had not sanctioned the pension case of renowned cancer specialist Dr Khalida Usmani (pride of performance) even several years after her retirement despite the publication of her case in the newspapers.

He said the education department had not submitted the commutation bills of 34 employees even three weeks after the issue of ‘authorities’ for the purpose. Police, irrigation and S&GAD had been delaying submission of bills of six retired employees each, he added.

Referring to delay in health and local government departments, he said these were not submitting the bills of three employees each. He said the communication and works, labour, livestock and food and finance departments had not been submitting bills in two cases each. Performance of excise and taxation, wildlife, irrigation, high court, district and sessions judges and population welfare was also unsatisfactory in this regard, he added.

According to Mr Qureshi, the provincial government departments had been deliberately delaying the submission of commutation bills to their retired employees, violating the instructions of President Gen Pervez Musharraf.