Zubair Qureshi
Federal Ombudsman (Wafaqi Mohtasib) Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi while taking notice of the grievances of pensioners and alarming state regarding resolution of their issues has directed establishing a pension desk in all major ministries and corporations.
According to a statement issued Tuesday, the Federal Ombudsman has been receiving a large number of complaints regarding delays in their pension and other post-retirement benefits.
“There is total apathy on part of the departments/agencies while hefty bribes are demanded from the poor pensioners. Otherwise, their cases are delayed in red tape for months and years. This has led to the emergence of “touts” who obtain large sums to facilitate pension cases,” the statement further said.
In order to address this serious situation Wafaqi Mohtasib had setup a monitoring committee headed by a Senior Advisor Mr. Muhammad Ayub Tarin former Additional Auditor General and Additional Finance Secretary.
While presiding over a meeting of the monitoring committee on Tuesday, Wafaqi Mohtasib directed that major Ministries, Corporation/Agencies, that deals with thousands of pensioners should ensure functional pension desk, manned by trained staff and to be supervised by a Senior Officer to facilitate the processing of pension cases and save the old pensioners, widows, orphans from running pillar to post.The meeting was attended by Secretary Ejaz Ahmed Khan, Senior Advisors of WMS Mr. Muhammad Ayub Tarin, Mr. Ahmed Farooq & other senior officers, Mr. Jibran A. Malik, CFAO Establishment Division, Mr. Kashif Ahmed Noor, Member (Finance) Railways, Mr. Hasnat A. Qureshi, DG (Accounts) CGA, DG AGPR and other stakeholders.
The issue of allocation of funds to Agencies like Railways and EOBI needs to be tackled without delay. He directed that a special meeting with the Ministry of Finance and other agencies with complaints of shortage of allocation should be held shortly to streamline the whole system to facilitate payment and curtail the misery of pensioners.
