IT is the responsibility of employers to the get names of its employees registered with the Employees Old-age Benefit Institution (EOBI), obtain an EOBI registration number for each worker, deduct the EOBI share from the salaries of employees, and deposit monthly funds with the EOBI until the maturity of pension benefits.

But problems arise when any employer — despite the deduction of the EOBI share from the employee’s salary — fails to deposit it with the EOBI, does not care to obtain an EOBI registration card of its employees, and then suddenly ceases functioning, causing a gap for claiming pension benefits.

This non-contributing gap occurred between a private airline and the EOBI. Information collected from EOBI desks revealed that not only were the contributory funds missing from registration with EOBI records, a few names of employees were also missing from registration on EOBI records — this, even though the share of the EOBI monthly deduction was executed and reflected on salary slips. A few employees have already attained 60 years of age, and have reached over and above the age limit of pension entitlement. Several are likely to attain pensionable age soon. The airline has already stopped the payment of monthly salaries, effective from July 2018.

Under the circumstances, how will the verification of employment between EOBI be obtained, given that the airline has already closed-down its offices and is unable to entertain such verifications because of the non-availability of the system that maintained its financial record? The airline’s headquarters and other offices have already been sealed by the Federal Board of Revenue and the Civil Aviation Authority due to the non-payment of their dues in a large sum.

In this situation, innocent staff are suffering the non-payment of EOBI pensions, in addition to the non-payment of salaries. Will the concerned quarters of EOBI come forward to find way out?

Hasan Adil Malik
Karachi

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2019