Workers Welfare Funds: SC summons finance, overseas secretaries to settle pending claims

The Supreme Court directed secretary Ministry of Finance and secretary Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development to sort out pending claims of marriage, death and scholarships of the workers by next Thursday.
A two-judge bench comprising Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed and Justice Mushir Alam heard the suo motu about the disbursement of Workers Welfare Funds (WWF) on the applications of union workers. The bench warned if the matter is not resolved by next date of hearing then they may take punitive action against the officials.
Joint Secretary Ministry of Finance Jibran Malik informed that WWF are with the Trust. However the Director WWTF Masood Raza denied it saying they haven't received money in their account. The provinces complained that after 2015-16 the federation has not released funds for the death, marriage and the scholarship claims.
Additional Advocate General Razzaq A Mirza informed that legislation for WWF is initiated in Punjab. He said as unless the dispute for the collection of workers fund is not resolved, the Punjab government will not collect it. He said that they need immediately Rs 2 billion to pay the pending claims of workers.
The AAG Khyber Pakhtunkhwa told the bench that they would not collect funds as majority of their workers work in Sindh and Punjab, but come back in the KPK after their retirement. He said teachers of the schools, which are funded by WWFT, had not been paid salary for the last three months as they have not received the WWF. Justice Sajjad observed that in Sindh many petitions were filed regarding WWF, therefore, the factories owners have decided that until the dispute between federation and the provinces regarding collection of social welfare funds is sorted out, the factory owners will deposit the funds in Sindh High Court. AAG Balochistan informed that they have cleared the claims of workers. Abdur Rehman and Abdur Rauf, representatives of the workers unions on whose petitions the suo motu was taken, informed that a number of workers' applications for grant of funds are pending in the WWF Trust, but they are not paid money. They told that the funds released by the Finance Ministry were for the salaries of the WWF Trust officials and for the settlement of the claims.