Plight of the pensioners
Friday, 29 August 2008
Administrative sloth and corruption is a hydra-headed monster. It does not cause suffering only to the public in general, who have to approach the government offices for various kinds of services. Ironically though, the same government officials, who were once so powerful when in chair, become the victim of the same system as soon as they are out of office. The same chairs that would torment the service-seeking public under various pretexts would now turn on them. This is a vicious circle that has been dogging the administration since its creation.
It has been revealed through a recent research carried out under a fellowship programme of the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) that the retired government employees face endless suffering at the hands of their erstwhile colleagues when they need their service to withdraw their pensions. They have to run after endless files and desks, fill in forms of umpteen kinds, produce various kinds of personal documents and so on. And then there is also the unspoken condition for completing these processes in time and without hassles and harassments. And those former government employees, who are now on the other side of the table, know it better.
Though it is already a common knowledge, the TIB's findings obtained through a research has only contributed to it by quantifying the level of tardiness, inefficiency and corruption at the government offices concerned where the retired government officials are driven from pillar to post to get the necessary service and, of course, in exchange for bribe.
According to an estimate, 71 per cent of the pensioners had to pay up to Tk. 8,000 as bribe to expedite their process of pension withdrawal. In the process, they have to submit from 8 to 11 types of papers including the certificate of entitlement for leave, application for Leave Preparatory to Retirement (LPR), job description/book, last payment letter, no objection certificate, description of house-rent deduction, certificate of repayment of electricity and gas bills, application for pension, pension payment order (PPO) and so on. On the other hand, for family pensions, some 13 to 16 types of papers have to be processed. It takes on an average 149 days to complete entire process. But the amount of bribe payable to the officials concerned would get fatter, if the pensioner wants to speed up the process of withdrawing the pension money.
That the instances of corruption and procrastination in different government departments are endemic need not be retold. And the scourge is so deeply entrenched in our administrative culture that the suffering public have about resigned to their fate on the matter. But the story turns full circle, when the same government officials, once out of office, come face to face with the dog-eat-dog world that they themselves were once part of. It has to be admitted that pension is a big area of public expenditure. Strangely though, there is no provision of generating the government's own fund for paying its employees when they retire from service. On the contrary, the taxpayers have to bear the burden of the pension money. Under the circumstances, the government needs to have a serious rethink of the matter so that a separate fund for pension might be created for the government employees during their service life.
Now returning to the issue of hassles and corruption at the government offices where pensioners are pushed around. The best way to address the problem is to reduce the number of steps and papers involved in the process. However, the ideal solution is to create a one-stop service delivery mechanism, preferably, through automation. Before that, the government will have to have a fresh look at the existing state of irregularities in the pension payment system and the plight of the retired government officials under consideration.
It has been revealed through a recent research carried out under a fellowship programme of the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) that the retired government employees face endless suffering at the hands of their erstwhile colleagues when they need their service to withdraw their pensions. They have to run after endless files and desks, fill in forms of umpteen kinds, produce various kinds of personal documents and so on. And then there is also the unspoken condition for completing these processes in time and without hassles and harassments. And those former government employees, who are now on the other side of the table, know it better.
Though it is already a common knowledge, the TIB's findings obtained through a research has only contributed to it by quantifying the level of tardiness, inefficiency and corruption at the government offices concerned where the retired government officials are driven from pillar to post to get the necessary service and, of course, in exchange for bribe.
According to an estimate, 71 per cent of the pensioners had to pay up to Tk. 8,000 as bribe to expedite their process of pension withdrawal. In the process, they have to submit from 8 to 11 types of papers including the certificate of entitlement for leave, application for Leave Preparatory to Retirement (LPR), job description/book, last payment letter, no objection certificate, description of house-rent deduction, certificate of repayment of electricity and gas bills, application for pension, pension payment order (PPO) and so on. On the other hand, for family pensions, some 13 to 16 types of papers have to be processed. It takes on an average 149 days to complete entire process. But the amount of bribe payable to the officials concerned would get fatter, if the pensioner wants to speed up the process of withdrawing the pension money.
That the instances of corruption and procrastination in different government departments are endemic need not be retold. And the scourge is so deeply entrenched in our administrative culture that the suffering public have about resigned to their fate on the matter. But the story turns full circle, when the same government officials, once out of office, come face to face with the dog-eat-dog world that they themselves were once part of. It has to be admitted that pension is a big area of public expenditure. Strangely though, there is no provision of generating the government's own fund for paying its employees when they retire from service. On the contrary, the taxpayers have to bear the burden of the pension money. Under the circumstances, the government needs to have a serious rethink of the matter so that a separate fund for pension might be created for the government employees during their service life.
Now returning to the issue of hassles and corruption at the government offices where pensioners are pushed around. The best way to address the problem is to reduce the number of steps and papers involved in the process. However, the ideal solution is to create a one-stop service delivery mechanism, preferably, through automation. Before that, the government will have to have a fresh look at the existing state of irregularities in the pension payment system and the plight of the retired government officials under consideration.