Unpaid wages: KMC ordered to pay salaries, pension

Union lawyer says thousands of employees have not been paid their salaries for the last two to three months

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court has directed the local government secretary and the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) chief to ensure the payment of salaries and pension to the corporation's employees within two days.

A division bench, headed by Chief Justice Faisal Arab, passed this direction while hearing a petition filed by the KMC workers union, Sajjan, which had taken the Sindh finance and local government departments as well as the KMC authorities to court in 2013.

According to the union's lawyer, Nadeem Sheikh, thousands of employees, including pensioners, sanitary workers and the staff of the fire brigade department, have not been paid their salaries for the last two to three months.

During the course of the hearings, the court had been issuing directions to the provincial government's finance secretary to resolve the problem by providing Rs500 million as aid to the KMC by the 10th of every month but the issue is yet to be resolved.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 15^th, 2015.