Job jeopardy: Over 1,800 CDA employees’ fate hangs in the balance

ISLAMABAD: A recent decision by the government has put nearly 2000 employees of the capital civic agency in a quandary. The Establishment Division on February 6 through a circular directed all federal ministries, divisions, corporations and autonomous bodies to stop renewing contracts of the temporary employees. According to documents, at present, some 1,811 contractual employees including daily wagers are working in the CDA in basic pay scale (BPS) from 1 to 5. The CDA hired some 2,586 officials on temporary basis since 2009 and of them, services of 775 employees were regularised on recommendations of the Cabinet Sub-committee on Regularisation then headed by Syed Khurshid Shah of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Interestingly, of these 1,811 temporary employees, 1,188 are ordinary grade malis (OGM) in BPS 1 and 10 assistant directors in BPS 17. While rest of them work as security guards, sweepers, sanitary workers, helpers, UDCs, LDCs, assistants, computer operators, drivers, firemen, tractor operators etc. These employees were hired during the tenure of the PPP in 2011. A daily-wager is hired for a period of 89 days and contract is renewed for another 89 days upon expiry, while a contractual employee, in most cases, is hired initially for a period of one year. “All of these temporary employees are entitled to job regularization as they were recruited in year 2011,” said an official of the administration wing quoting the CDA rules which say that the services of daily-wage employees would be regularised upon completion of two years continuous service. CDA Member Administration Amer Ali Ahmad said that the civic agency has neither made any new appointment nor extended services of any person in the last six months. He said that the federal government’s order would be followed and the CDA board would see if the authority required the services of these contractual employees. “In case we need their services, then a special case will be put up before the government,” Amer said. In the recent past, the CDA labour union had also taken up the issue with the CDA Chairman. CDA Labour Union General Secretary Chaudhry Yasin could not be contacted for comment. Published in The Express Tribune, February 15th, 2014.