Setting up BHUs is state’s job, not of private company
All of the six patients, one of whom was in a coma, had been in good health until taking the oral medication. PHOTO: AFP/FILE
Hundreds of contract workers who were previously employed by a private company at basic health units across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have been rendered jobless after the apex court on Wednesday upheld an appeal filed by the provincial government against the verdict of the high court.
This was ordered on Wednesday by a three-member bench of the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, as it heard an appeal filed by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government against the verdict of the Peshawar High Court (PHC).
The PHC had ordered the provincial government to regularise hundreds of contractual staff employed by the private company, Sarhad Rural Support Programme (SRSP) at basic health units (BHUs) in the province.
During Wednesday’s hearing, the K-P Additional Advocate General (AAG) said that the SRSP had been established as a private company under Section 42 and was awarded a contract by the federal government to build BHUs across the country, including K-P.
The contract was terminated in 2016. Thereafter, all contractual employees of SRSP were laid off.
The AAG said these employees now wanted to be regularised.
At this, CJ Ahmed said that the construction of BHUs is the responsibility of the government, not of any private company.
The chief justice asked if secretaries of provincial departments were there only to make money, adding that very powerful secretaries are posted in the province. CJ Ahmed stated that secretaries created such companies to pilfer billions of public funds from the national treasury where they hired their blue-eyed people.
The SRSP, the court observed, was established maliciously and that it never served the people.
“It is like a secretary opened state treasures to his family to eat as much as they want,” the chief justice remarked, asking whether NAB had probed the matter. At this, the AAG responded that the contract was awarded to SRSP during former dictator General (retired) Pervaiz Musharraf’s regime.
At this, Justice Faisal Arab remarked whether the rule of the former dictator was immune from NAB’s scrutiny.
The court approved the K-P government’s appeal against the regularisation of SRSP employees and voided PHC’s verdict.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 22nd, 2020.