Abu Dhabi: A number of employees of some ministries in Abu Dhabi as well as those working for certain semi-government companies in Dubai did not get to celebrate Eid Al Adha as they would have liked to because their salaries were held back by their bank for no apparent reason.
A large number of government and semi-government employees in Dubai and Abu Dhabi told Gulf News that they felt miserable during the holidays because the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) held back their salaries since November 25 for no justifiable reason.
"There are 26 employees including office boys working for a ministry in Abu Dhabi. Our salaries were transferred to the bank on November 24 but, till December 8, we did not receive it," said one of the employees.
"I did not get my salary during Eid and it had not been credited until yesterday. It hit me hard since I have important family commitments to take care of," the Emirati employee said.
She added that the delay in getting her salary meant that she was late with payments towards her loan and car loan instalments and would have to cough up the additional charges.
Futile visits
One of the employees who was out of town said he was shocked when he discovered that his salary had not been transferred to his account especially since he had just come back from a vacation.
An office boy in the same ministry said he was not able to send money to his family back home. "Why did the bank have to hold back our salaries. I have a poor family back home," he said.
The employees said they repeatedly tried to contact the bank in a bid to sort out the issue but in vain.
"We contacted the bank several times and we were asked to write [a] letter to the management," the Emirati employee said.
Another employee said even written correspondence and repeated visits to the bank elicited no response.
"They treated us as if we were begging, as if it was not our money," he said.
He said the bank claimed on Sunday that the problem had origniated with the employees' respective offices.
"We checked with our offices but our salaries had been transferred on time," he said.
Another employee said she had been working for long at the same office but there had never been an instance when her employers had failed to pay employees' salaries on time.
"We always received our salaries on time," she said.
She said she had spent the last two weeks running after the bank to get her salary. "The bank did not give us any response for the delay in clearing our salaries."
"I am afraid that they will do that again and again. I will change my bank as soon as possible," she said.
An assistant human resource manager with a Dubai-based semi-government company told Gulf News that (ADCB) did not pay the salaries to his company's employees on time.
The manager said that he has been in touch with the bank for several days before Eid Al Adha holidays to sort out the salary issue.
He said he had sent a cheque to the bank with the entire amount of the employees salaries a few days before Eid.
He said 20 to 40 employees of his company who had salary accounts with ADCB had not yet received their pay. "I am concerned about the issue since there were clear orders to companies to pay their employees before the start of the Eid holidays but the bank did not do that," he said.
No clear response
He said that it was only when the company threatened to expose the bank in the media that it had released the salaries.
"We were not given a clear response from the bank about why they were doing that. They said they had a problem in their system," he said.
Several attempts by Gulf News to obtain a comment from the bank failed.