Alleged illegal appointments: Unpaid teachers take to the streets

Protesters say they were even assigned election duties and they obliged.

KARACHI: The teaching and non-teaching staff of the Sindh education department took to the streets on Wednesday to protest their unpaid salaries since August 2012 and the fact that their appointments were declared fake.

Gathered at Arts Council Chowrangi, dozens of protesters who identified themselves as members of the ‘New Teachers’ Action Committee’ approached the venue which lies close to the Sindh Assembly building.

They shouted slogans against the education department’s additional secretary, Dr Fazlullah Pechuho, who in one of his statements had said that the protesting teachers were appointed in violation of the rules and regulations. During the protest, the action committee’s chairperson, Abu Bakr Abro, attempted self-immolation but was saved by his colleagues.



“We have been performing our duties regularly since the time of appointment in August last year but the government had not paid anything,” said Ayaz Hussain, one of the protesters. “The government even asked us to perform election duties at various polling stations across the city and we obliged.”

Earlier, Dr Pechuho had formed an inquiry committee to probe into the alleged illegal appointments in the education department during the tenure of former Karachi education directors, including Shamsuddin Dal, Attaullah Bhutto and Qasim Baloch.

“The Sindh education department advertised the posts on February 12, 2012. We applied and successfully passed the interview and written tests,” he said.

The four-member committee, headed by the education department’s special secretary, Shafiq Mahesar, had submitted its report, confirming that thousands of illegal appointments were made in collusion with the education department’s 12 officials, who took hefty sums in return.

The report, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune, recommended initiation of criminal cases against these officials.

“These officials, after receiving hefty bribes from the poor candidates, issued thousands of [job] offer letters, while completely ignoring the academic qualifications required for the posts,” said a member of the committee while talking to The Express Tribune. “Ironically, hundreds of candidates who actually sat the exam and passed still await their employment letters.”

He added that these appointments were made against the rules and regulations as no permission was sought from the education department. “For a total of 698 Sindhi language teacher posts, these officials appointed 1,398 people,” he said, adding that this malpractice was also conducted for posts of physical training and workshop instructors as well as drawing and languages teachers.

“The fraud has happened at such a scale that the committee cannot even determine the exact number of illegal appointments,” said the member. “The safest estimate is over 9,300 illegal appointments that can be confirmed through the record of Civil Surgeon Services Hospital, which had issued fitness certificates to the recipients of offer letters.”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2013.