ISLAMABAD: The Employees’ Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) Chairman Azhar Hameed on Monday said that EOBI would pay three-month of arrears amounting to Rs2.4 billion to around 400,000 registered pensioners with increased annuity by August.
“Each retired employee registered with the EOBI will get an increased pension of Rs8,500 coupled with Rs6,000 in arrears from April to June. In total, Rs14,500 will be transferred in the bank account of each pensioner by the current month-end,” said the EOBI chairman.
He said that a recent raise of Rs2,000 was announced by the EOBI at the start of this year which was approved by the Federal Cabinet due to active persuasion of Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development Zulfikar Bukhari.
To a query, Hameed said that the delay in the approval of the recent increase in pension had occurred due to actuarial valuation of the EOBI on the instruction of the Ministry of Law and Justice.
The EOBI chairman said that with the recent increase in pensions, the total increase given to pensioners reached 62 per cent during the last 20 months of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.
The EOBI had given a raise of 30 per cent in 2019 after which the annuity reached to Rs6,500, he added.
“The government intends to take the pension to Rs15,000 during its five year-term by granting an overall increase of 130 per cent,” said Zulfi Bukhari in a recent interview with APP.
Highlighting initiatives taken by the present management for the improvement of financial health of EOBI, the chairman said that the department had made tireless efforts to bring significant increase in its recoveries and contribution.
Azhar said that EOBI’s revenue collection stood at Rs18.23 billion during FY18, which witnessed an increase of 15 per cent and ballooned to Rs20.7 billion in FY19.
He further informed that the EOBI has achieved the revenue collection target of Rs21 billion for FY20.
He said that the EOBI had been declared as a federal subject by the Council of Common Interests (CCI) last year, enabling the management to pursue its initiative of including the informal labourers in the pension net.
“The government intends to ensure the inclusion of undocumented labourers in EOBI pension net by introducing an amendment in the EOB (Employees’ Old-Age Benefits) Act through an act of Parliament.”
After the amendment, surveys and awareness campaigns would be launched to expedite registration of informal workers, he said while responding to a query.
The EOBI chairman further informed that the EOBI Transformative Initiative is also underway which would digitize the entire affairs of the organisation.
