Informal labourers to be included in EOBI pension net, says Zulfi Bukhari

ISLAMABAD   –  Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development (OPHRD) Sayed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari on Sunday said that effort were afoot to amend the Employees Old-Age Benefits Institution’s (EOBI) laws for  inclusion of the informal workers in its pension net.

The OPHRD ministry would present an ordinance before the federal cabinet in the coming days to bring majority of the country’s informal employment under the government’s pension scheme, the SAPM told an online session hosted by the Corporate Pakistan Group (CPG) and Nutshell Group on social networking sites such as Face Book and Twitter.

He said the ordinance, once approved, would also enable the overseas Pakistani workers to become registered pensioners through submission of self-contributions to the EOBI.

Zulfikar Bukhari told the forum that revenue generation of the EOBI had surged significantly as its structural flaws were rectified completely during the two and half year tenure of the present government. “When our government took over, the monthly pension amount was stood at Rs5,250; within about 18 months, we took that up to Rs8,500, with a 62 per cent increase ,” he maintained. The SAPM said his goal was to bring the monthly pension of EOBI pensioners at par with minimum wage by improving the organisation’s assets that had been dormant for the past 15 years and worth trillions of rupees. Referring to success of the Roshan Digital Account, he said the ultimate aim was to transform it into a digital challenger bank by adding more incentives for the overseas Pakistanis. Several incentives for the expats were on the cards to boost remittances by curbing the Huwala and Hundi.

Article source: https://nation.com.pk/03-May-2021/informal-labourers-to-be-included-in-eobi-pension-net-says-zulfi-bukhari