Auditor General takes notice of 600,000 ghost pensioners

ISLAMABAD: Auditor General of Pakistan Rana Asad Amin on Thursday took notice of 600,000 ghost pensioners who were drawing Rs36 billion on annual basis from the national exchequer.
The AGP also asked all field audit offices to conduct audit of pension payments under their respective jurisdictions and submit their reports immediately.It is pertinent to mention here that the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) is one of those institutions which are not getting their accounts audited from department of AGP due to the stay granted by the Sindh High Court (SHC). The case of ghost pensioners, if any, could have been unearthed during the audit of NBP.
According to the Constitution of Pakistan, it is mandatory for the federal and provincial governments as well as any authority or body established by, or under the control of federal or a provincial government, to get their accounts audited by the Auditor General. The NBP told the Senate’s finance committee two days back about 600,000 ghost pensioners belonging to combined three departments including retired employees of federal government, armed forces and Employees Old Age Benefit Institution (EOBI).
This whole issue surfaced during the proceedings of Senate panel when Accountant General of Pakistan raised the issue that after transferring payment of pension on ATMs the banks were not complying their signed contracts with them for furnishing life certificate after pause of every six months to ensure that kith and kin of dead pensioners could not continue getting their pension amount.