Delay in promotions: Mansehra municipal employees to strike on Monday

Employee union president accuses Tehsil Nazim, TMO of nepotism in hiring new staff

MANSEHRA: Municipal employees of Mansehra have said that they will go stage a strike on Monday against delays in their promotions while hiring new staff without following rules.

Members of a municipal union have accused the Tehsil Nazim and the Town Municipal officer of nepotism.

Speaking to the media on Friday, Sheikh Muhammad Zubair, president of the municipal employees union (MEU), said that promotions of over 50 employees of different cadres have been pending with the Tehsil Municipal Administration for a few years now.

Despite repeated requests and reminders, he said, the municipal administration had failed to promote existing staffers. In the meantime, Zubair claimed, 15 workers and a supervisor were hired for different sections of the TMA without properly advertising for the spots, violating hiring rules.



Zubair accused the Tehsil Municipal Officer (TMO) and Tehsil Nazim of nepotism for irregularities in the recruitment. He further claimed that there was no need to hire new additional staff as existing employees were already working on the positions which had been shown as vacant in the advertisements.

“Now there are two employees who will be drawing salary for one job,” he said, adding that his union would take up the matter with the National Accountability Bureau since the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led provincial government was making hollow claims about ending corruption and favouritism from government departments.

Accompanied by other office bearers of the MEU, Zubair announced that unless their demands of finalising seniority, approving pending promotions, and a clarification about how the Tehsil Nazim and TMO hired 16 new staffers when there were no vacancies, the employees would stage a token strike on Monday.

If the district administration fails to take any action, thereafter they would stage a fully fledged strike from December 26.

Meanwhile, when approached for comments, the Tehsil Nazim Khurum Khan was not available.

TMO Javed Khan, meanwhile, denied allegations of the union office bearers and explained that the new staff which had been hired was on contract.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17^th, 2016.