The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Ministry of Finance to transfer reconciled amount, Rs 124 billion, in the account of Worker Welfaare Fund Trust within 10 days A two-judge bench comprising Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed and Justice Mushir Alam heard the suo motu case regarding the disbursement of Workers Welfare Fund (WWF) on the applications of union workers.
Justice Azmat said if by the next date of hearing the reconciled amount Rs 124 billion is not transferred in the account of WWF Trust then the secretary Ministry of Finance, secretary Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, and labour secretaries of the all the provinces would appear before the court. The bench also directed the Finance Ministry to also settle non-reconciled amount of Rs 48 billion with WWF Trust.
An official of the Finance Ministry accepted that Rs 124 billion of the WWF are in the public funds, but sought sometime to transfer it to WWF Trust. He said that the funds are quarterly released.
Justice Azmat said: "We are here to protect the rights of the public." The funds are meant to be granted to the workers on their relatives' death or marriage as well as scholarship for their children, he added. The judge further said that collection for workers welfare fund is neither tax nor levy; therefore, the government has no claim on it, which is lying in the federal treasury.
Abdur Rehman and Abdur Rauf, representatives of the workers unions, on whose petitions the suo motu notice was taken, informed the bench that a number of workers' applications for grant of funds are pending in the WWF Trust, but they are not paid money. They said that the funds released by the Finance Ministry are for the salaries of the WWF Trust officials and settlement of the claims.
Abdur Rehman said that in 2013-14 total collection of WWF was Rs 23.741 billion, and the funds released by Finance Division were Rs 11 billion, and in 2014-15 the collection was Rs 25.873 billion and the Finance Division released Rs 10 billion. Similarly, in 2015-16 the collection was Rs 22.24 billion and the funds released by Finance Division were Rs 15.64 billion. In 2016-17 around Rs 16.58 billion were collected, while Rs 6.2 billion were released, and in 2017-18 the total collection of WWF was Rs 16.41 billion and Rs 10.83 were released.
Later, the case was adjourned until November 22.
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