ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Steel Mills board of directors has instructed the company’s management to escalate audit of dues of retired employees by June 2018.
Also, the PSM board directed the management to prepare a cash flow plan in conjunction with National Industrial Parks (NIP) and submit it before it, according to sources in privatization commission, reported Business Recorder.
These directives were given to PSM’s management during a recently held meeting of the board chaired by Abdul Jabbar Memon and attended by Secretary Privatization, Ifran Ali, CEO PSM Shakeel Ahmed Mangnejo and various other senior officials.
Mr. Ahmed, CEO PSM apprised the meeting as per directives of the board it had engaged Howarth, Crowe and Chaudhry firm for third-party audit of dues of retired employees.
He said the firm was selected according to PPRA rules and completed audit work till end of June 30th, 2017.
According to the report, dues of retired employees stood at Rs11.2 billion. And a payment of Rs14 billion received from NIP in January 2018, was already disbursed in lieu of gratuity to around 842 employees as per Sindh High Court (SHC) directives.
Now, the amount outstanding owed stands at Rs9.775 billion which remains payable to employees who retired before June 2017.
The board was apprised by assistant chief financial officer (ACFO), Arif Sheikh that Finance division hadn’t still replied to its query regarding interest rate on provident fund and the audit firm engaged supposed the interest rate for 2015-16 at 10.4 percent and 9.4 percent for 2016-17 on qualified instruments of investment.
He said once a response was received from finance division, appropriate adjustments would be made in the determined statement of provident fund dues.
And CEO PSM apprised the board, that retired employees of the company were in severe financial distress and many retired employees had already expired and their families were awaiting their rightful dues even after a lapse of five years.
Also, PSM’s CEO said NIP disclosed its cash-flow wasn’t predictable and could take more than a year before the appropriate amount of funds could be made available for clearance of dues of retired employees.
Secretary Privatization, Ifran Ali said the federal govt was already paying a monthly salary of Rs380 million to PSM employees as a loan on humanitarian grounds.
Mr. Ali contended it was unjustified to burden the federal govt with such a request in absence of any adequate repayment plan or cash-flow details.
He said it wasn’t necessary to clear dues in one tranche, and payments to retired employees could be disbursed in phases when funds are received by PSM from NIP.