The government has finally started to release last month’s outstanding salaries of around seven lakh government employees, which had been stuck for over a week following a pen-down strike by non-gazetted officials of the Office of Comptroller and Auditor General and the Office of the Controller General of Accounts.
Audit and Accounts Officials Council President M Shafiul Azam told the Dhaka Tribune: “Our pen-down strike has been suspended from Tuesday and will stay so until July 20 following assurance from the Prime Minister’s Office.”
The audit and accounts officials had been staging the work abstention programme since June 29 to press home a four-point demand.
Claiming that they have been releasing the salary bills from Tuesday, Azam said most government officers and staffs have already received their salaries. He also expressed hopes that all the public servants would get paid by Thursday.
Sources with authorities concerned said PMO Secretary Abul Kalam Azad phoned the leaders of Audit and Accounts Officers Council on Tuesday and asked them to withdrew their strike, saying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was aware of the matter and assuring that their demand would be fulfilled soon.
State Minister for Public Administration Begum Ismat Ara Sadique told the Dhaka Tribune that the salaries of government staffs had been released yesterday afternoon, so there was no prevailing problem regarding the salaries.
On the other hand, a Finance Ministry source said the clearance of the salaries was unlikely within the next couple of days as officials had not received any confirmation on their phones about the electronic money transfer. The source, however, added that bills for the Public Administration Ministry officials would not be cleared this month.
Earlier, Finance Minister AMA Muhith endorsed the four-point demand of the audit and accounts officials; however, the Public Administration Ministry did not give its consent about the matter and said it was not the recommendation of the Finance Ministry but a personal recommendation from Muhith.
The Audit and Accounts Officers Council launched their pen-down strike demanding the non-gazetted officers salary scale be set at Tk15,000 and officers ranked “SAS super” be promoted to first class officers. They also demanded that the grade of junior auditors be upgraded to 16 from existing grade 14.
