KARACHI, May 24: Federal Minister for labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis Ghulam Sarwar Khan on Thursday said that the government intended to bring about a positive change in the labour laws to ensure maximum possible facilities to contractual employees. He, however, ruled out entitlement of pension to such workers.
He was addressing a press conference at the Employees’ Old-age Benefits Institution (EOBI) after holding meetings with EOBI, representatives of employers and Labour Workers Federation and Webcom during his two-day stay in the city.
The minister said meetings with heads of relevant departments and leaders of various labour organisations were being held to resolve the problems being faced by the employees of formal and informal sectors.
He said issues like Workers Welfare Fund, minimum wages, provident fund, contractual employees’ problems, IRO 2002, pension, etc were being sorted out in the meetings, adding that pay raise and more facilities would be announced in the next budget in the light of the suggestions given by the participants of these meetings.
The minister said policies were framed at the federal level but their implementation was duty of the provincial governments. He asked CBAs to help identify things which needed amendment.
Mr Khan said disbursement of pension was assigned to the National Bank and people could draw the same easily from the relevant branch of the bank.
He also spoke about the facilities already made available to workers in the education sector, increase in the compensation for death of a worker, etc.
Regarding his meeting with EOBI, Ghulam Sarwar Khan said the institution has surplus funds which would be invested in real estate, APP adds.
In this regard, he referred to the EOBIs hotel and shopping plaza project in Lahore, and said that its ground-breaking ceremony would be held on August 14. Similarly, another project of EOBI head office and Shopping Mall in Islamabad was in the designing stage and its foundation stone laying ceremony was expected to be held on August 14.
He said if workers of any organisation felt that they were not being given their due benefits, they should approach the federal government, which would certainly take action.
He told a questioner that over the past three years, appropriate raise in minimum wages, pension and workers’ participatory fund had been effected. In the education sector, he pointed out, workers’ schools were being run all over the country and their standard was higher then that of the government schools.
When asked about the EOBI’s response to an offer by the government of Mauritius for the construction of a project by Pakistan in Port Louis, the minister said the matter under discussion was that how much investment the EOBI would be required to make and what return it would get.
Federal Labour Secretary Malik Asif, who was also present on the occasion, told a questioner that once the financial model for the Mauritius project was worked out, the matter would be put before the Institution’s Board for a decision.
