ISLAMABAD: The National Bank of Pakistan has failed to increase the pension of thousands of its retired employees despite the passage of two decades.
Sources said that the government has not made any annual increase in pension of the retired employees since January 1999 despite the fact, NBP on every month deducts pension from the ‘salary’ of its employees to boost the pension fund account.
Presently, there are 11,500 pensioners of NBP, including 3500 widows of deceased pensioners.
As per the cabinet division notification, the government has declared NBP as an autonomous body that is under the control of the Finance Division.
Sources said that retired employees of ZTBL as well as SBP are getting annual increases in their pension every year but NBP employees are being deprived of such perks.
Sources said that the total impact of pensioners liability from 1999 to 2019 is only Rs11bn as stated in bank documents. In addition to this, the total balance in the pension fund account is approximately Rs60 billion, and the bank also earns an annual profit of Rs6bn through investments made by the said fund.
Sources said that the bank had reduced the pension rate from 70 per cent to 35 per cent and later fixed it at 50 per cent.
The NBP revised the pay scale of staff during the period from January 1, 1993, to December 31, 2009, only once in January 1999, sources said.
Sources said that the federal government has revised the pay scale of government employees including employees of autonomous as well as semi-autonomous four times during the said period.
In addition to this, the government increased the salaries in these 14 years by more than 200 per cent but the 70 per cent pension rate was kept intact.
They also said that the total assets of the bank are 3,124bn in which profit before provisioning is 42bn. Similarly, the profit before tax was 28bn whereas profit after tax was 15bn during the financial year 2019.
According to the handout of 71 AGM of NBP, the bank is facing contingencies related to pension benefits of its retired employees and has filed a review petition where a final decision is still awaited. The financial impact of the case has not been included in the instant financial statements as the bank looks forward to a favourable outcome of the case.
It is pertinent to mention here that NBP management had reduced pension rate from 70 to 33 per cent illegally in 1999. On this, the NBP employees went to court, accordingly, the court had given the decision in employees’ favour but the NBP sought a review in the apex court, which is still pending.
One retired NBP senior official told this scribe that the government should review its policy with regard to NBP’s pensioners as owing to the ongoing corona situation as well as inflation trends, retired employees are spending a very tough life.
