Money matters: AJK audit staff on strike

Demand raises, equal pay with audit staff in provinces.

MUZAFFARABAD:

Hundreds of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Audit and Accounts Department employees staged a protest on Monday, demanding wage increments. They want the government of Azad Kashmir and the Kashmir Council to increase their salaries by 10 to 15 per cent.

Threatening to intensify the protest, Audit and Accounts Employees Welfare Association (AAEWA) President Shabir Khalid Mirza said that if the government failed to fulfill their demands, they would begin a pen down strike across AJK.

He said it is the duty of the Kashmir Council secretary — who controls the Audit and Accounts Department — to issue a notification.

“They are delaying it and making false promises,” Mirza said while addressing the protesters.

Mirza said the pen down strike would end when the Kashmir Council issues a notification bringing the Audit and Accounts Employees of Azad Kashmir pay scale at par with Audit employees in other provinces then they would end the pen down strike.

Azad Kashmir Accountant General Gulzar Husssian Shah told The Express Tribune that a letter has been written to the Kashmir council secretary and hopefully the matter would also be discussed with the Prime Minister of Pakistan, who is also the Kashmir Council chairman and the final authority on the matter.

Later, the protesters refused a request by Shah to end their strike.

Due to the strike, government employees from across the state could not collect cheques. “We have been standing here since the morning to collect our cheques and pending official files. If the strike continues till June 30, millions of rupees of different government departments could lapse,” said Riaz Arshad, an education department employee.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2013.