Ministry of Industries and Production (MoI&P) has reportedly ignored retired employees of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) while preparing a plan to distribute Rs 200 billion amongst the unemployed workers as per the decision of Federal Cabinet.
The Ministry is to clear liabilities of thousands of retired employees of PSM amounting to Rs 20.870 billion some of which have even passed away in miserable circumstance. The government has planned to revive PSM on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode but it has lost pace due to current coronavirus epidemic as the parties including Korean investors interested in taking part in the bidding are unable to visit Pakistan.
An official stated that PSM revival plan has been expedited this needs couple of months to finalise it.
The government has been releasing funds since 2013 to Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) as loan for payment of net salaries to PSM employees. During the current financial year 2019-20, federal government has been releasing Rs 340 million( approximately) per month for the payment of net salaries to PSM employees. Previously, the federal government also released funds of Rs 1.266 billion to PSM employees expired till December 2018.
PSM has been out of production since June 2015 and accumulating liabilities. The position of liabilities( provisional ) as on June 30, 2019 was Rs 217.7 billion of which Rs 55.12 billion were payable to employees( retired and serving deferred liabilities), Rs 51.46 billion GoP loans, Rs 64.5 billion borrowing from banks and Rs 46.62 billion miscellaneous.
Out of the total, outstanding dues of the retired employees up to December 31,2019 has been worked out to be Rs 20.875 billion and the amount payable to the extent of petitioner is Rs 12.741 billion ( approximately). The liabilitiesis dynamic in nature and increases with passing time.
Despite government's regular interventions, a large number of retired employees from PSM have not been able to receive post-retirement benefits since 2013. Around 3597 retired employees filed constitutional petitions in the Sindh High Court (SHC) in its order of August 16, 2018 directed to resolve the issue of payment of the retired PSM's employees within a period of 90 days. The payment of PSM employees could not be materialized because Finance Division in its comments conveyed that the outstanding dues were not a liability on the government and there is no budgetary allocation for this purpose in the current or in the next financial year.
Stakeholders Group headed by Mumrez Khan has also submitted its PSM revival plan but the government is not giving any consideration so far.
According to the stakeholders group, its revival plan will increase FBR's revenue by Rs 100 billion per annum from steel import tariff rationalisation in addition to recovery of Rs 150 billion from those who plundered PSM in the past.