‘‘Our Department is committed to and progressing towards improvement in service delivery and redress of difficulties faced by pensioners’’, this was stated by the Auditor General of Pakistan-Rana Assad Amin, while chairing a meeting of senior officers of the Department of the Auditor General of Pakistan in his office here today. The Auditor General convened this special meeting to monitor progress on implementation of decisions regarding pensioner facilitatio0n taken by the Department of the Auditor General of Pakistan (DAGP). These decisions were endorsed and approved by the Federal Minister for Finance, Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar back inOctober 16th, 2015.
It is pertinent to mention here that it is the Constitutional mandate of the Auditor General of Pakistan under Article-170 of the Constitution to give directions as to the maintenance of accounts of the Federation and the Provinces. Since his taking charge of the office of the Auditor General of Pakistan, Rana Assad Amin has been paying special attention to improve service delivery to pensioners with special focus on simplification of procedural steps involved and provision of utmost facilitation to pensioners. In this regard, the Auditor General directed to coordinate with all stakeholders for speedy and timely compliance of the decisions.
As a backdrop, it may be noted that the Auditor General had instituted a high level committee on ‘‘Pensioner Facilitation’’ in September, 2015. Based on recommendations of the committee, the Auditor General made a presentation to the Minister for Finance on October 16th, 2015. Broadly, six decisions were approved for implantation. The first decision was on generation of quarterly computerized list of superannuating officers/officials and sending these to Executives concerned for initiating pension process. The second decision asked for making Direct Credit System (DCS) mandatory for all the existing pensioners. The third one required simplification of pension forms. The fourth decision was to appoint welfare officers in all Ministries/Divisions. The fifth one envisaged development of Pension Management Information System. The sixth, and the final decision, was meant for banks and Pakistan Post to generate facilitation systems for pensioners. Meetings to review progress on above have been routinely held on fortnightly basis in DAGP.
The Auditor General was briefed on point-to-point basis regarding the implementation status. It was highlighted that joint efforts of the DAGP, Ministry of Finance, Controller General of Accounts, National Bank of Pakistan and Provincial Finance Departments, were underway to ensure complete implementation of the decisions. It was informed that majority of the decisions have already been implemented. With regard to DCS, it was updated that implementation has been started and is likely to be completed shortly.
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