KARACHI: President Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI) M Shariq Vohra, while expressing deep concerns over the sudden stoppage of payments by National Saving Center (NSC), has urged the government to look into this serious issue as any delay in these payments would intensify the hardships mostly for the senior citizens including retired individuals and widows whose lives depend on timely payments.

In a statement issued on Saturday, President KCCI pointed out that KCCI had received numerous complaints as the returns of many individuals against their investments in NSC certificates had been put on hold without a valid reason and they all were extremely worried about it.

“It is a well-known fact that these payments belong mostly to senior citizens and widows whose lifetime savings are invested in certificates so that they could utilize the monthly returns on their daily bread and butter. Hence, it is really unfair to stop such critically and economically important payment,” he added.

He said that on one hand, the Federal Ombudsman had directed the Pakistan Post to digitize all Post Offices by February 2021 to avoid delay in payment of profits against saving certificates issued to senior citizens and widows but on the other hand, this important segment remained deprived as their request for release of outstanding payment has been turned down.

He stressed that in order to facilitate the senior citizens, the National Saving Center had to be completely digitalized and its operations should be improved as per banking standards while the profits payable should instantly be transferred into the personal accounts of its account holders, which would be widely welcomed as the senior citizens will not be required to visit saving centers every month to claim their dues and they will be able to access their profits online.

The KCCI President asked the Ministry of Finance and the State Bank of Pakistan to issue directives for immediate release of payments to the masses so that their lives were not disturbed.