The government has decided to make pension payments from grade 17 and above through direct credit system (DCS) from next month, it was learnt. Sources in the Finance Ministry stated that as per senior officials of Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) the cut-off date for conversion of pensions to DCS would be March 31, 2016 in all the provinces.
They added that recent reports of ghost pensioners in the country were very disturbing for the government as payment of Rs 394 billion was made to 2.572 million pensioners from federal government, provinces, military accountant general, Railways and Pakistan Post as well as through National Bank of Pakistan and other banks. The government wants to put in place a system to prevent payment to ghost pensioners.
In order to deal with the issue of ghost pensioners, AGP recommended that banks needed to generate a system alert for cases where life certificates were not received after six months. The AGP also wants banks to put in place a grievance redressal system, set up special counters for pensioners and wants similar action to be taken by Pakistan Post because pensioners are dissatisfied with banks as well as account offices and their parent departments.
A copy of presentation available with Business Recorder reveals that from the pensioners' perspective account offices are non-co-operative and delay processing of pension cases. Additionally, there are errors and inaccuracies due to manual entries as well as misplacement of records and staff absenteeism. The account offices do not provide any assistance to the handicapped and the disabled pensioners.
Pensioners are also dissatisfied with their parent department as well as with banks, which are overcrowded and have no special counters and waiting area for pensioners. Finance Ministry was also recommended to process anticipatory (80 percent) pension in case of incomplete documentation and wants establishment of pensioner welfare office for facilitating and guiding pensioners and to deal with their complaints and address their grievances.
The AGP also proposed policy initiatives including establishing a central pension wing under controller general of accountant (CGA) with responsibility to create a pension portal for integration of pension database. Moreover, the AGP wants development of a uniform pension payment mechanism and to act as a regulator.
Ministry of Finance was urged to consider the establishment of a pension fund and wants the government to provide seed money with equal contribution by pensioners towards the fund. The AGP wants prudent divestment of assets of funds in a diversified manner.