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ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary committee on Thursday directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Employees Trust (PTET) to clear arrears of thousands of Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) pensioners before Eid.
According to the Senate subcommittee on information technology and telecommunication, the PTET had been delaying clearing dues of the pensioners in violation of law.
Before the end of its tenure in 2013, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government had announced a 20 per cent increase in the pension of retired PTCL employees.
The subcommittee was formed to ascertain why the PTET, which is the custodian of former PTCL employees, had not increased their pension.
Members of the subcommittee have been asking the PTET to clear Rs40 billion arrears it owes to the 40,000 pensioners.
The trust maintained that it was obligated to pay around Rs116bn pension disbursement. Currently, the size of the trust’s fund is Rs109bn, leaving a deficit of Rs7bn. The Rs40bn arrears are in addition to the Rs116bn disbursement amount.
The PTET said that it was unable to disburse Rs40bn arrears to thousands of former PTCL employees unless it was given additional funds.
During the meeting on Thursday, chairperson of the subcommittee Rukhsana Zuberi said that she had gone through details of assets and incomes earned by the PTET and it was in a state to pay the arrears. “The directives of this subcommittee are clear that the PTET has to clear the arrears before Eid,” Ms Zuberi said.
PPP Senator Rehman Malik assured PTET’s top management that the government would provide funds if needed. “This committee will issue directives for the government to support the PTET. But it has to pay the pensions and there is no way out of it,” Senator Malik said.
PTET managing director Hamid Farooq said that he would place the matter before the members of the board to approve payment of arrears.
The meeting was informed that prior to 2010, the board of trustees of the PTET used to give raises similar to the government pension, depending on the availability of funds. However, since 2010, the board of trustees started exercising its powers according to the Pakistan Telecommunication (Reorganisation) Act 1996, which approved disbursement of annual pension increases to retired PTCL employees separate from the government.
The meeting was informed that the trust found the pension increase financially unviable. The trust continued to disburse regular pension to the retired employees every month and on time.
A senior official with the Ministry of Information Technology told Dawn after the meeting that it was less likely that a decision to pay such a huge amount could be made soon.
Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2019
