Ombudsman summons EOBI chief with action plan

Qureshi says poor people are deprived of their rights due to unsympathetic attitude of officials

ISLAMABAD:

Federal Ombudsman of Pakistan Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi has directed the chairman of Employees' Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) to appear before him on February 9 with details of all pending complaints and the department’s plan to address them.

The federal ombudsman had taken a suo motu notice of complaints of negligence against EOBI officials after he was forwarded thousands of these by President Dr Arif Alvi.

He said that poor Pakistanis who spend their lives working get merely Rs8,000 in old-age pension, but they have to constantly visit the office to retrieve it.

He further said that there were numerous shortcomings in the EOBI pension system, which was in dire need of modernisation. He noted that poor people were deprived of their rights due to the unsympathetic attitude of regional offices and lack of competent staff members.

He took notice of EOBI’s slow implementation of his office’s directives and directed the chief to come up with suggestions for complete implementation of the same.

It is worth mentioning here that in the past, many large-scale complaints pertaining to this department had been taken to the Supreme Court (SC), where action was taken against its officers.