HYDERABAD, Aug 4: The leaders of the Sindh National Council (SNC), Sindh National Party (SNP) and the Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM) have announced to unite on one platform against the construction of the greater Thal canal.
Speaking at a joint news conference on the bank of River Indus here on Sunday, Hussain Bux Thebo of the SNC, Dr Dodo Mehri of the SNP and Shafi Mohammad Burfat and Asghar Shah of the JSMM said the activists of the three parties would hold joint protest demonstration outside the Hyderabad Press Club on Aug 5 to highlight the acute shortage of water.
They appealed to the political parties, who considered Sindh their motherland, to raise their voice against greater Thal canal, Sanjwal, Akhori, Bhatkar and Dhok Pathan projects.
They said the purpose of organizing the news conference on the bank of the river was to enable journalists to witness that the River Indus was wearing the look of a vanishing lake even in August.
MLF: The secretary general, Muttahida Labour Federation, Qamoos Gul Khattak, who is also the president of the Workers Union (CBA) of Latifabad, Qasimabad and Hyderabad, has expressed grave concern over the non-payment of salaries to all the union council employees throughout the country.
In a statement issued on Sunday, he said that by depriving the local councils of their right to collect octroi tax, the federal government had converted the local councils of the country into a huge orphanage and rendered the trade unions totally ineffective.
He said instead of struggling for the rights of the workers, the activities of local councils’ trade unions had now been restricted to a long struggle for their legal salaries.
He said on the one hand rising prices of consumer goods had broken the back of the poor workers, and on the other the stubborn and inhuman attitude of government functionaries had made their lives miserable.
He pledged to continue the legal struggle for the salaries of the employees and demanded the federal government to release the salaries of the employees of all the union councils of Pakistan for the months of June and July without any further delay.