EOBI asked to exercise caution in releasing funds

Traders allege ghost workers are getting the money.

FAISALABAD: Leading trade associations of the textile sector have asked the Employees Old-age Benefit Institution (EOBI) to ensure that fake workers do not receive the fund which is meant for the welfare of genuine workers.

This was discussed in a meeting between textile industry representatives, led by Pakistan Textile Exporters Association Chairman Rana Arif Tauseef, and EOBI officials.

Textile exporters, hosiery manufacturers, bedsheet and upholstery manufacturers, processors, power loom operators and spinners attended the meeting.

Tauseef pointed out that funds collected from the industry and businesses were not being spent on the welfare of workers, their widows and marriages of their daughters. “Rather many fake workers were getting this facility,” he said. He sought details of the collected amount as well as list of workers who were getting the fund.

He said Rs70 million was being collected from the Faisalabad region every month but workers were not provided equal benefits, adding the government had collected a huge amount of Rs85 billion under the worker welfare fund but not a single rupee had been spent on workers.

Later, EOBI Regional Head Sajjad Ahmad assured the traders that the fund would be utilised for the welfare of workers and fake labourers would be punished.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2012.