ISLAMABAD: Senator Engineer Rukhsana Zuberi here on Tuesday admonished officials of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) for nonpayment of the increased amount in the pension of retired employees payable by Pakistan Telecommunication Employee Trust (PTET).
She was chairing a meeting of the subcommittee of Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication here at Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (PIPS).
The agenda of the meeting was to discuss the issue of increase in pension of retired employees of the PTCL.
The committee gave two-week’s time to the PTCL and PTET to submit details of the investments, business rules, investment rules, details of the bank deposits, return on investments on two buildings of PTCL based on market price, year-wise PTCL funds contribution as per act 1996, additional burden of payment on PTET after Voluntary Separation Scheme (VSS) 2008.
The committee directed PTET to make payment of pension to the remaining Non-VSS pensioners out of the available funds and the directives may be placed before the board of trustees for endorse the decision.
At the outset of the single agenda meeting, PTET managing director informed the committee that in compliance with the judgment of those employees approached the court were paid the pension, however, the court had directed the rest of the employees to approach appropriate forum for the relief.
He said the trust has no funds to make payments since the dues of the employees till December 31, 2018 are worth of Rs41 billion.
Senator Kalsum Parveen said 343 employees who had approached the Supreme Court were paid the difference, however, the rest who did not approach the court are still in the waiting queue.
Senator Rehman Malik said the Supreme Court had directed the retired pensioners to approach the appropriate forum and this parliamentary forum is an appropriate one therefore you are directed to pay the difference to the retired pensioners.
“These employees served this institution all their lives, they do not deserve this kind of treatment,” he said adding, “We will go the extra mile for these poor pensioners.”
Officials of the PTET, however, kept insisting that they are short of funds therefore, no increase can be paid to the retired pensioners from the existing funds but the committee while seeking all the details of their business, directed them to make payments in two-week’s time and submit a compliance report to the committee.
