The federal government will be introducing the Voluntary Pension Scheme from July 1 to replace existing traditional pension setup on demand of the IMF.
All newly recruited government employees will be awarded voluntary pension scheme from July 1, while the old government employees will be given pension from official budget. The government could transfer the employees to new pension scheme with their consent.
The Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan has prepared the new pension scheme. The SECP has also suggested implementation of the new scheme in government as well as in private sector.
It said the private sector presently giving Provident Fund or Gratuity, instead it should only offer voluntary pension scheme to employees. The SECP argued that the Provident Fund or Gratuity is not providing regular income to employees on retirement. Under this scheme the employees’ pension facility will be continued despite change in their service. There are 43 pension funds currently running in the country and investment in these funds has reached to above 61 billion rupees. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was the first government that invested in pension funds two years ago and presently the KP government employees 21 pension funds have been working.
