Call for pension reforms to cope with fiscal deficit
Pensioners waiting outside the bank to receive their payments. PHOTO: EXPRESS/FILE
The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is the first province that has digitised the pension payment system. The provincial government, with the help of digitalisation, has been able to remove tiers of the pension claimants, which were not genuine.
This was stated by K-P’s Finance Department’s Additional Secretary Safeer Ahmed. He was speaking at a meeting on ‘Reform of Pensions: Lessons from Successful Examples in Pakistan and Beyond,’ organised by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), in collaboration with Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) and UKAid’s FCDO on Thursday.
SEED Team Leader Dr Omer Mukhtar informed the participants that K-P province has 170,000 pensioners which made around 25% of their active workforce.
The provincial government has allocated more than Rs90 billion for pension expenditures in the current year. The most worrisome aspect of it is that these expenditures are growing at 14 per cent while provincial receipts are growing at 8 per cent. Keeping this trajectory in view, the government will have very little resources to meet other expenses in coming years.
Member Federal Pay and Pension Commission, Ms Rukhsana Asghar, asserted that the real challenge for us is to figure out the long-term solutions and get a strong legal framework to address the pension liabilities.
Therefore, a dialogue is required with all stakeholders to get them on board to implement the pension reforms.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 24th, 2021.