Non-payment of salaries: PHC issues warrants for DG, secretary health

Orders arrest of MNCH coordinator and director finance.

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has issued arrest warrants for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa health department director general, secretary and two Maternal Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) programme officials for failing to comply with court directives on the payment of salaries to 24 social mobilisers.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Irshad Qaiser on Thursday issued the warrants of the department officials and MNCH provincial coordinator Dr Sahib Gul and director finance Hamid Hussain while hearing the petition filed by Irfan Jamal.

The petitioner’s counsel told the court the health department had reinstated the 24 workers but is yet to pay their salaries which have been pending for four years, despite clear court orders. He said wages were paid only for March 2015.

The next hearing will be held on May 6.

On February 11, the PHC had given the government a month’s deadline to pay the arrears it owed to the MNCH social mobilisers. The workers were removed from service in 2011 for undefined reasons. They filed a writ petition which was accepted on April 12, 2014. The court ordered their restoration but the health department challenged the verdict in the Supreme Court which upheld PHC’s original decision. Subsequently, they were reinstated on January 26 this year.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2015.