KARACHI: Representatives of employee associations expressed mix reaction on Saturday as Pakistan’s southern Sindh province announced earlier this week to block the salaries of public servants from the next month who refuse to take coronavirus vaccines.

“Chief Minister Sindh [Murad Ali Shah] has directed [the province’s] finance ministry to stop the salaries of government employees from July who do not want to take coronavirus shots,” a handout issued by the provincial authorities said on Thursday.

Speaking to Arab News, the chief minister’s spokesperson Rasheed Channa said it was not a “mere announcement” but the decision would also be implemented by the Sindh administration. 

He acknowledged that there was no authentic data of government employees who were refusing the vaccine, adding that there was a “general feeling” that some officials were reluctant to get themselves inoculated. 

COVID-19 initially remained under control in Sindh during the third wave of the pandemic, though the number of infections started mounting after the Eid Al-Fitr celebrations last month.

The positivity ratio in the province during the last seven days was 6.9 percent, but the infection rate in its largest and most densely populated city of Karachi has been 12.26 percent.

Asked if it would be right for the province to stop salaries of unvaccinated employees, the spokesperson said: “It is matter of people’s health and such actions are permissible in emergency situations.” 

The decision has also elicited a mixed reaction from employee associations in the province. A senior member of a labor union at the State Bank of Pakistan called it “inappropriate” during a conversation with Arab News. 

“It is a strange and inappropriate decision which will badly affect the lives of government employees in remote areas of the province where we hardly have any hospitals and vaccination centers,” Liaquat Sahi said, adding that the government should provide more facilities to people, especially in the rural areas, if it truly wanted to vaccinate all employees.

“Everyone wants to get these jabs since they offer protection,” he continued. “However, stopping salaries is inappropriate.” 

Dr. Qaiser Sajjad, general secretary of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), told Arab News he had contacted the provincial authorities and was told that government employees were not willing to take COVID-19 vaccines despite repeated notifications.

“It is unfortunate that such orders have been issued,” Sajjad said, though he also added that people who are refusing vaccination could become carriers of the disease and transmit it to others.

“We will need to vaccinate at least 75 percent of the population to completely open our provinces and country,” the PMA general secretary said while suggesting that both public and private sector jobs should only be offered to those who are getting vaccinated.

President of the Sindh Secretariat Employees Nazeer Jalalani said he completely supported the decision.

“The provincial administration of Sindh is spending billions on us,” he told Arab News. “Our employees who do not want to get vaccinated are completely wrong. They should take these shots for their own safety.” 

Jalalani said that 80 percent of the Sindh secretariat employees had been vaccinated at a center that had been opened for them.

“This is for our own protection,” he noted. 

COVID-19 has taken the lives of 21,189 people in Pakistan where 930,511 people have been infected by the virus since the outbreak began in February last year. Currently, there are 48,937 active cases of the respiratory disease while only 2,310,115 people have been fully vaccinated across the country.