Iqbal Academy Employees Unpaid for 3 Months
Lahore:September 30: The employees of the Iqbal Academy are still awaiting action from the Federal Ministry of Information as they are not being paid their salaries for the last three months.
The employees have been waiting for their salaries for the third consecutive month and, despite several appeals at different forums the ministry concerned is yet to adopt any measure. The employees spent their previous Eid without getting salaries and now the Eid-ul-Azha is only a few days away and they do not have money to make both ends meet – not to speak of purchasing new cloths for their children or buying a goat. Most of the employees, while talking to The News, almost cried and enquired as to why and for what they were being punished by the department as they had children and families to look after. They deplored that at a time when the prices of commodities were soaring up and it was becoming more and more difficult to sustain life within meager resources, the department hierarchy was pushing them towards committing suicides through denying them their basic right of salaries, terming it a sheer violation of basic human rights.
Sources informed The News that two officers of the Ministry of National Heritage and Integration Mashhud Ahmad Mirza and Muhammad Bilal allegedly were responsible for the delay in the salaries. They claimed that the said officials had made the prior approval of the ministry concerned mandatory for their expenditures for the last one year.
It is pertinent to mention here that the previous ministry of NH&I had been merged in the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and the said officers were now part of new ministry i.e. the federal ministry of information, broadcasting and national heritage.
Reportedly, it is not only the Iqbal Academy but almost every autonomous body or offices attached with NH&I have been suffering from its cut and bite. Earlier, it was being hoped by the employees that the change of the government would have a healthy effect on the learned bodies which had suffered badly due to political influence of former government but now both these officers had allegedly entered the new ministry and the conditions had become even worst for these prestigious institutions.
However, when contacted, Federal Secretary Information and Broad Casting Dr Nazeer Saeed claimed that he had ordered for the disbursement of the salaries to the staff of the Iqbal Academy. He claimed that he had approved the salaries of the staff which would be disbursed among the staff most probably on Monday or Tuesday. He further claimed that the salary issued had cropped up after the Iqbal Academy director had gone to the Supreme Court regarding his posting issue. He stated he had held a meeting on it and made it clear that the salaries of the employees had nothing to do with the appointment of the director, so the salaries should be released immediately.
Joint Secretary Mashud Mirza claimed that the salaries of the employees were delayed due to merger of Iqbal Academy with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. He claimed that the previous “ID” of the department was changed by the Finance Department and now the department had released them the new ID, and, hopefully, the salaries would be duly released well before the Eid. He further alleged that they had referred the case of Iqbal Academy to the NAB on the direction of Standing Committee NH&I on the charge of corruption cases.The news.
