LAHORE: The board of governors of the Punjab Employees Social Security Institution (PESSI) has approved a Rs18.89 billion budget for the financial year 2021-22 raising from current year budget of around Rs16.95 billion – showing a 11.44 per cent raise.

The PESSI budget documents expect overall total income for the next fiscal to the tune of Rs19.86b, including Rs18.89b, to be collected through social security contribution. Sources in the meeting, however, claim the PESSI was expecting recovery of Rs13.5bn for the year 2020-21 – leaving Rs3.5bn deficit considering the current year income of around Rs17bn.

PESSI plans to make Rs9.1bn expenses on medical care under 46 different heads.

Sources say the medicine cost around Rs0.96bn, while the remaining over Rs8bn goes under different heads. Similarly, the medical care expenses for the medical directorate stand as high as Rs3.054bn. And administrative expenses have been proposed at around Rs1.97bn. The cash benefits to secured workers have been proposed as low as Rs536m.

Sources say PESSI BoG members Rana Abdul Samee and Muhammad Maroof Khan observed the cash benefits to the labourers and medical facilities account for only 10pc of the budget, while administrative cost was consuming almost 90pc of the budget.

At the BoG meeting chaired by Labour and Human Resource Department Minister Ansar Majeed, it is learnt, the governing body members complained that the PESSI BoG had decided to issued e-cards to the labourers in 2019 and a commitment in this regard was made yet again in the board meeting in October last year but the labourers were still waiting for their e-cards.

The board members also explained that the Commissioner of Social Security had committed in the April 1 BoG meeting that some one million labourers would be provided e-cards till June 30 but this initiative was still waiting to see the light.

The board members also got their concern registered that the PESSI management was not presenting Hospital Management Information System report on a weekly basis as per commitment. They also sought Monitoring Reforms Development performance report in each board meeting.

The board members also told the labour minister/PESSI BoG chairman that the review of past one decade governing body meeting suggests that rarely any agenda points were reflected to benefit the social security registered labourers, while 98pc of agenda items revolved around 8,400 employees of the social security.

Some board members said the PESSI administration’s lack of interest did not let the number of registered labourers and all benefits were being enjoyed by the institution’s administration.

It is learnt the PESSI had downgraded social security hospitals. However, budget of these hospitals had been allocated as per their pre-rationalisation status and will be reviewed after the recommendation of the grievances redressal committee.

The PESSI BoG approved increasing beds from 1,725 to 1,825 at its 21 social security hospitals.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2021