Govt employees denied salary advances

Buying new clothes, shoes for Eid made unfeasible for officials and their dependents

PESHAWAR:

As most salaried or self-employed individuals rush to the markets to wrap up Eid shopping, government employees in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) have no choice but to envy them since a majority of them have been denied salary advances.

With Eid just around the corner, markets and shopping malls are buzzing with buyers, who were lucky enough to get their monthly pay checks in advance or are sole proprietors. However, government employees in the northern-province have been denied an advance this year, which has shattered both their hopes and that of their dependents, and put a damper on their spirits.

One such individual is Mubeen, a former constable at the police department, who is still struggling to recover from the financial strain exerted on his budget by supplementary groceries during Ramadan.

“I have no savings from the preceding month since my entire pay check was spent on rations for Suhoor and Iftar. The salary advance before Eid was my family’s only ray of hope, but now we are anticipating a very gloomy Eid,” winced Mubeen.

Naveed, a tube well operator in the Gulbahar area working for a local government department, was in a similar situation but seeing his children distraught at not having anything new to wear for Eid, made him take drastic measures. “Every year I would take my family out shopping after receiving an advance. This year however, I did not receive my salary in time. Therefore, I was impelled to take a loan to put a smile on my children’s faces,” he informed.

However, not many can afford to take loans to cover the added expenditure on Eid shopping, and have to put up with their families’ sadness.

As per an investigation conducted by The Express Tribune and the information made available to it, as many as 600,000 government employees, holding designations across various departments, are going through such a predicament, as they have been denied salary advances, worth Rs45 billion by the provincial finance department.

When quizzed about the plight of government employees across the province, Himayatullah Khan, who is the incumbent Chief Minister’s Adviser on Finance, acknowledged the problem and the resultant dissatisfaction being exhibited by government employees. “This is not in our hands. The provincial government is currently undergoing a serious financial crisis, which has left us with no choice but to delay the crediting of salaries to the 1st of May, after Eid,” regretted Khan.

On the other hand, apart from demoralising multitudes of government employees and their households, the denial of salary advances has also affected the businesses of clothing retailers, who resent the unprecedented drop in their sales, given the poor state of the economy. “Last year, during this time, you could not find space to stand in my shop due to the influx of customers. But this time around, it’s deserted. When so many employees have not been paid their due salaries, how can they be expected to shop?” questioned Zakir Khan, a children’s garments retailer in Peshawar’s Meena Bazaar.