ISLAMABAD: The All Government Employees Grand Alliance (AGEGA) Tuesday postponed their protest drive till February 10, 2022, after having talks with the Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Mohammad Khan.
The AGEGA has started a protest drive against the government, alleging that the government on February 11, 2021, signed an agreement with the employees, which includes an increase in salaries and pensions, integration of ad-hoc allowances, time scale promotion up-gradation, and disparity reduction allowance. As per the agreement, the four ad-hoc allowances should be included in the basic salaries, upgrading of grade 1-16 scale employees, and ensuring time scale promotion.
Talking to the media, Ali Rehman Bajwa, AGEGA chief coordinator said that the employees have presented the charter of demands to the government.
He said that the Establishment Division has to pass a summary to the federal cabinet for implementing the demands of the employees, saying in case the Establishment Division is not doing so the employees will again start protest with full strength. Bajwa, addressing the protesters, said that all the government organisations included in the AGEGA, including the four provinces, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Azad Kashmir government employees have joined the protest demonstrations.
Early in the day, the employees of the Federal Secretariat gathered outside the Q-Block, Finance Division, then marched towards the Parliament House led by Rehman Ali Bajwa.
Bajwa said that the government had time and again assured the employees of implementing the agreement but after the passage of a few weeks puts it on the back burner. He said that if the trend continued the AGEGA will launch a massive protest on February 10, 2022, for an indefinite period till the government implemented the agreement.
He further said the march would be held and all the organisations affiliated with the alliance would take part in it as in the face of the current staggering inflation, the protest of the oppressed government employees with unity and solidarity has become inevitable.
Further, disparity reduction on running basic pay should be given to other provinces on the pattern of federal, Azad Kashmir, and Gilgit-Baltistan.
In case the demands of the employees are not met, all the employees will once again protest outside the Parliament House and would march towards the PM office. Meanwhile, teachers of public sector educational institutions in the federal capital also observed complete strike against the government’s decision to bring federal educational institutions under the administrative control of the Mayor of Islamabad.
Public sector teachers, while strongly opposing the privatisation of the educational institutions and rejected the move to bring public sector educational institutions under the administrative control of the Mayor Islamabad. While expressing serious concerns over the government’s move to bring the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) under the administrative control of the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI), the government teachers said that the MCI was unable to pay the salaries of the existing staff, how it will fund the salaries of thousands of government teachers working in Islamabad. In protest against the government’s move on Tuesday all the educational institutions remained shut and the teachers’ representative have announced to go on strike, if the government did not stop the process of privatising the public sector schools.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021