Waseela-i-Rozgar: Service providers protest non-payment of dues

Say they have not been paid for a year.

ISLAMABAD:

Over 40 Waseela-i-Rozgar service providers working under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) protested outside the chairman’s office on Wednesday against non-payment of their dues for the last year.

The protesters also staged a sit-in outside the BISP chairman’s office and chanted slogans against the officials.

Mohammad Asif, a service provider, said that they had been assured of a meeting with BISP higher-ups but they refused to meet us and asked them to leave.

“Every time we are given a date to discuss the issue, only to be refused,” he claimed.

“We have been struggling for last year but they just won’t listen to us,” he said.

Another service provider who asked not to be named said that in the last six months, BISP has changed two secretaries.

“Whoever tries to resolve our issues is transferred by the chairman. This month, a third secretary has been appointed,” he said.

BISP Chairman Enver Baig said they were working on plan to release the delayed payments which will “hopefully be completed by the end of June”. He said auditors had “ found some discrepancies” which are being verified.

Baig said verification has been completed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the service providers there will get the payments within the next few days. “Service providers in other provinces will have to wait for the end of this month.”

Published in The Express Tribune, June 26^th, 2014.