Weeding out ghost employees

There is a need to initiate a meaningful process of weeding out ghost employees in all departments of Sindh government

The ongoing drive at the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) against ghost employees highlights a pressing problem within the department but the manner in which this drive is being carried out casts doubts over its effectiveness. The Sindh government recently decided that it would no longer pay salaries to employees who only come to work once a month to collect their pay cheques. These people mainly include those who have been appointed on the basis of their political affiliations and are paid salaries for work they do not do. Ghost employees have proved to be a huge burden on the KWSB’s resources as their number is in the thousands.

Had the only motive behind the drive been to save resources and end corruption, the people of Sindh could have hoped that perhaps the provincial government was finally moving in the right direction. However, as has been observed so far, the ruling PPP has used this drive to mainly target those employees appointed on the basis of their affiliation with parties other than the PPP. Had the PPP been on good terms with these parties, the issue of ghost employees may not have been raised at all. In addition, the tools being used to verify whether workers are ghost employees or not also seem to be ineffective. All workers are being asked to come to a booth set up by the authorities to verify their physical presence by showing their identity cards. This is not a foolproof way to check for ghost employees as they too can come in for this verification and then continue to skip work and collect their salaries at the end of the month. What the government needs to do is to check the attendance records of all workers, verify their employment status and hand those who skip work with warnings. If they continue to skip work, they must be dismissed. There is clearly a need to initiate a more meaningful process of weeding out ghost employees in all departments of the provincial government, which is not happening right now.

Published in The Express Tribune, March  13^th,  2015.

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