Government grapples with pension payment irregularities

The Government is grappling to tackle pension payment irregularities at the Pensions Department with the increase in the number of pensioners at the rate of two thousand while paying Rs. 10 billion for around 580,000 retired senior citizens every month, Public Administration Ministry sources divulged.

The massive increase in public sector employees to over 1.27 million by 2016 from about 850,000 in 2005 along with government pensioners has created a large voting bloc for major political parties which had to promise them with salary increases and other benefits at each election, Publ i c Administration Minister Ranjith Madduma Bandara said.

The National Pension Bill had been drafted to introduce a contributory pension scheme for public servants, he said adding that it will help in streamlining the functions of the department and tackling irregularities.

A sum of Rs.1 billion had been allocated to set up a national pension fund from the budget presented in 2016 and the ministry plans to raise Rs.3 to 4 billion from a separate fund as an initial capital of the pension fund, he disclosed.

Around 4,000 state institutions liaise with the department in making out pension payments.

The internal functions of the department are a complex system leading to several incidents of fraud and misuse of funds within this system, the Committee on Public Accounts ( COPA) recent report revealed.

According to the latest findings of COPA, the e- pension project launched in 2010 to streamline the department's functions has been abandoned since 2013 after spending a sum of Rs. 182.2 million.

The I n f o r mat i o n and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) has informed that the department was not keen on continuing with the project resolving internal departmental issues even though ICTA was able to resolve the issues with regard to the project which has been abandoned since 1.11.2013.

ICTA has mentioned that no legal action has been taken against EWIS, the service provider, though they have not worked according to the agreement and measures have been taken to terminate the agreement, COPA report revealed.

It was revealed that 1463 pension salaries to the value of Rs. 53.39 million had been returned to the department as those were rejected, not being deposited in the stipulated bank accounts when they were sent to the bank accounts of the pensioners through Sri Lanka Interbank Payment System on February 28,2017.

It was revealed that measures had not been taken to rectify it though attention had been drawn to this issue since 2010.

It was drawn to the attention of the COPA regarding the establishment of a separate unit to deal with rejected transactions as there’s a possibility of occurring various fraudulent deeds according to this incident.

The committee emphasised the importance of using systematic information technology technique by the department in rectifying this situation.

And also, the over payment balance of pensions by 31st December 2016 was Rs. 320.2 million and though the measures were taken to recover this excess payment, the committee expressed its dissatisfaction over not taking measures against such erred officers in terms of Financial Regulations No.119 and No.156.

The massive increase in public sector employees to over 1.27 million by 2016 from about 850,000 in 2005 along with government pensioners has created a large voting bloc for major political parties which had to promise them with salary increases and other benefits at each election