More than 250 employees of the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) continued to go hungry for the ninth consecutive day on Tuesday. Their demands: to be paid their salaries that have been due since 2009, back when they were appointed.
“The authorities are pushing us towards committing a collective suicide. [If this continues we will be left] with no option but to take an extreme step by jumping from the FDE roof to end our lives,” said Basharat, a non-gazetted employee working for the FDE. He is yet to get a single month’s salary.
He and others like him have been camped outside the FDE office in sector G-9/4 for the past nine days.
The directorate had appointed 475 non-gazette employees in different schools back in 2009 when Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani -- a Pakistan Peoples Party member -- was the education minister. There were just 250 sanctioned posts.
Later, according to official sources, those employees who had political clout or bribed the relevant officials managed to have their cases moved ahead, and their appointments were legalised. They are continuing to receive salaries.
The remaining employees, over 200 of them, have protested time and again demanding that they be regularised and their salaries paid, but all in vain. The Accountant General Pakistan Revenues (AGPR) is refusing to release their salaries because, according to AGPR, their posts were never sanctioned and did not exist to begin with.
Seven director generals (DG) of the FDE have taken charge since the employees started their efforts. Each DG promised them that their issues will be addressed. Every new head puts the blame on the previous administration.
Official sources said that the files of these cases have disappeared from the directorate. The DG or another relevant official of the FDE, however, were not available for a statement, despite repeated attempts.
Sardar Aurangzaib, a protesting employee, said, “We have urged the DG to lodge an FIR in the Shalimar Police Station against the responsible elements, but he is not ready to do so.”
He added, “We are fed up of the empty promises and claims.”
Another employee Basharat said that he had three kids, but could not send them to school due to the non-payment of his salary. “I am regular in my duty and my principal threatens to terminate me from the job if I ask for a leave, despite knowing that I am not getting any salary.”
The 35-year-old Sajid Gul, crippled with polio and forced to use clutches, has struggled all his life to make ends meet on his own merit. He was happy to land a job at a federal government school some 20 months ago, thinking he would finally be able to provide for his 10-member joint family. Little did he know 20 months later he would be camped outside the FDE building observing a hunger strike to get his rights.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 11th, 2011.
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