KMC's officials, families await gratuity payments
An employee giving the prime years of their life to an organisation hopes to reap the fruit of their professional commitment upon retirement through the disbursement of monthly pensions and a lump-sum provident fund. Such too were the hopes of thousands of retirees of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), whose dependants remain deprived of their rightful money.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the widow of a retired KMC employee revealed that her husband had retired back in 2017 and had passed away two years ago. "Although I am receiving a monthly pension, the gratuity payment worth Rs5 million is still pending," said the widow, who simultaneously appealed to the Chief Minister of Sindh and the Mayor of Karachi to immediately clear the dues of all pensioners on humanitarian grounds.
According to sources of The Express Tribune, KMC has a total of 24,000 pensioners out of which more than 13,000 retired employees have been deprived of their legal rights including leave encashment, provident fund and gratuity since the past eight years, with their combined dues reaching Rs13.5 billion. Furthermore, KMC has stopped accepting cases of retiring employees of the town from 2023 onwards, depriving them of even their monthly pensions.
According to Dr Saeed Akhtar, Convener of the KMC Retired Employees Action Committee, the gratuity and provident funds were the monetary contributions that employees used to allocate from their salaries during their employment term while leave encashment was an amount paid to a retired employee equal to a year's salary in return for all their unused paid leaves until retirement.
"Many retired employees have passed away and their family pensioners, including their widows and children, are awaiting these dues. Likewise, other retired employees need the money for medical care, housing, business or other familial obligations like their children's weddings. However, due to the non-payment of these dues, the pensioners and their families are facing financial difficulties. Unfortunately, some pensioners' welfare funds have been used for development works in different periods. This was an illegal move," criticized Dr Akhtar.
"Some time ago, the Sindh High Court had approved a bailout package under which the Sindh government had to pay Rs4.2 billion to KMC in the form of pensioners' dues and grants. The provincial government had also increased the pension by 15 per cent in the 2019 budget and 10 per cent in the 2020 budget however, this increment has not been received by the KMC pensioners till date," he added.
On the other hand, Syed Zulfiqar Ali Shah, President of the Sajjan Union of KMC informed that the pension system of local bodies was centralized and was managed by the KMC since the beginning. "The federal and provincial governments were directed to pay the Octroi Zilla Tax (OZT) on time so that there would be no delay in the crediting of salaries and pensions to the employees. Although an approximate total of Rs1.3 billion are available for the payment of pensions through various means, delays are happening due to the increasing number of pensioners," opined Shah.
Commenting on the matter, the spokesperson of the KMC claimed that people who got their jobs in 1988 were now all retiring after reaching the age of 60 and their numbers were increasing by hundreds. "This has suddenly aggravated the pressure on the KMC, which is currently facing a severe financial crisis. However, every effort is being made to pay their dues on the special instructions of the Mayor of Karachi, Murtaza Wahab," said the spokesperson.