You’ve got mail: Electronic pay slips boggle Class-IV employees

Workers dread operating email accounts to receive salary details

PESHAWAR: Creating an email account might seem straightforward, but not for the non tech-savvy Class-IV employees of the Civil Secretariat. For them, it is a daunting task—especially as their pay slips have been linked to this exercise.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Accountant General’s office has made it mandatory for all employees of the province to create an email account for their pay slips. While the decision has been welcomed by the more educated employees, those who are computer illiterate are foreseeing nothing more than a potential headache.

The decision has caused a stir among the Class-IV workers and many of them are turning to tech-savvy associates or relatives to make and run their accounts.

“Most of us don’t have access to computers,” says Syed Shahid Akhtar, a peon at the Governor House. “At office, we are not even allowed to touch them by the officers and clerical staff,” he adds. Akhtar’s sister has promised him to make his account and print his monthly salary slip.

Most of these employees cannot read their pay slips and seek the help of clerical staff to determine their deductions and allowance in salaries. The Class-IV association president Jabir Hussain Bangash says that the decision is a burden for the 93,000 employees of the province. “If the AG office sends pay slips to the section officer of every department and he hands over printouts, it would make life much easier,” Bangash suggests.

Less paperwork

K-P Deputy Accountant General Zubair Arshad Khattak says that the decision was taken by his office after consulting experts. He stresses that the department wants to discourage printed pay slips as getting them through email is a more cost-effective method.

“The system was implemented and communicated to all the government departments of the province four months ago,” Khattak says. He adds that the AG administration staff can best explain this move.

He says the AG office wants all government employees to keep their pay and pension records on email because it is much easier to search and access. “The emailed pay slips will allow employees to swiftly rectify any irregularities in the near future and help them at the time of retirement in the long term.”

Khattak says the new system is not only a step towards computerisation, but will also save stationary expenses at the AG office. “We have sent a proposal to all the departments, suggesting that the department of the deputy disbursing officer (DDO) create an account to which all slips can be emailed. Subsequently, the DDO can distribute printouts of pay slips,” Khattak says.

Status quo

Separately, Class-IV employees of the Civil Secretariat have threatened to set up a protest camp outside the MPA Hostel in Peshawar to press for their promotions.

They have been struggling for promotions since last year, but authorities seem unyielding.

“A class-IV employee serves the government for his entire life at a single scale to which he was appointed more than two decades ago,” says Jabir Hussain Bangash. “We are being forced to go on strike. Nobody in the government cares about the problems faced by these poor people who work without any appreciation or specified working hours.”

Association members will sit at the camp every day for two hours to register their peaceful protest.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2015.