KARACHI: Expressing concerns over non-payment of pension benefits and retirement dues to more than 10,000 municipal employees of Karachi, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) has demanded that the Sindh government immediately ensure payment of all outstanding dues in compliance with the Sindh High Court’s order.
Speaking at a press conference here at the party’s temporary headquarters in Bahadurabad, senior MQM-P leader Dr Farooq Sattar said that employees’ pensions and outstanding dues were neither charity nor a concession, but legally enforceable entitlements earned through a lifetime of work.
‘These payments cannot be withheld or delayed on the pretext of lack of funds. If the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and Karachi’s 25 town municipal corporations (TMCs) need to obtain loans from banks or rearrange their project budgets for this purpose, they should do so immediately, because both the Supreme Court and the high court have already issued decisions in favour of employees. Like salaries, pensions and other dues are also a compulsory part of the budget,’ he said.
He recalled that on Sept 15 the SHChad issued a detailed judgement concerning matters related to the finance and local government departments.
He said that the bench ordered that the KMC and Karachi’s 25 TMCs of which 13 are controlled by the PPP, nine by Jamaat-i-Islami and three by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf must ensure, within 60 days, the payment of pensions, provident funds, gratuities and leave encashment that have remained unpaid to more than 10,000 retired employees for over a decade.
Dr Sattar said that while deciding the petition filed in 2025 by MQM-P’s advocates Ashar Qureshi and Muhammad Ilyas, the SHC also directed the chief secretary, KMC and officials of all relevant TMCs to reconcile all accounts in accordance with the court’s order, calculate the correct amounts and make the required payments.
He criticised ‘the incompetence and failure’ of the Karachi mayor, TMC chairmen and other local government representatives of all political parties to ensure timely payment of retirement dues to thousands of employees.
He also condemned the Sindh government for bringing what he called over 200 non-local officers belonging to the Sindh Council Unified Grade (SCUG) and posting them in place of municipal officers of KMC and towns.
He described this as an open violation of the city’s rights.
To a question about new provinces in the country, he said that administrative units must be created in Sindh.
He downplayed a question regarding internal rifts within the party and said that he was holding the press conference on the instructions of party convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui.