ISLAMABAD: The Federal Government Saturday enhanced minimum pension of Employees Old Age Benefit Institution (EOBI) pensioners by 46 per cent from Rs 3,600 to Rs 5,250 per month effective from April 1 this year.
Addressing a press conference here, Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs Mohammad Ishaq Dar said Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, who was in London, had given approval to the enhancement which would benefit 450,000 pensioners across the country.
The impact of this raise on the national exchequer would be Rs 6.67 billion, he added. The finance minister said under the 18th Constitutional Amendment, the EOBI had been devolved to the provinces since 2011 and one province had even passed a law regarding the EOBI as its subject.
“Another province’s case regarding the EOBI is pending in court,” he remarked.
Dar said according to all canon of law and the Constitution, EOBI’s all assets, including pensioners, were the property and responsibility of the provinces. The pensioners, he said, were not government servants but retired employees of private sector organizations.
He said the government was committed to strengthen the EOBI on sustainable basis. The Prime Minister, he added, in that regard set upa committee headed himself (Dar), which had finalized its recommendations for strengthening the EOBI for the welfare of pensioners, who were the weakest section of the society. The recommendations, he said, would be made public soon.
He said hearing of the EOBI case would resume soon and the Federal Government would present its viewpoint in the court.
