Pension scheme for all: Muhith

All people of Bangladesh will be brought under a pension system, AMA Muhith, finance minister, said yesterday.

“There will be an outline in the upcoming budget to include the 16 crore people under the pension scheme.”

He was addressing a programme at Bangladesh Secretariat to launch Electronic Fund Transfer (ETF) for pensioners.

“The implementation of the pension scheme will be done gradually after the finance minister draws its outline,” said Muslim Chowdhury, finance secretary.

The newly introduced ETF will help the retired civil servants to receive their pensions without any hassle and within a short time, he said.

At the event, Mohammad Muslim Chowdhury, secretary-in-charge of the finance ministry, said the government has taken public finance management reform initiatives to maintain macroeconomic stability and accelerate pro-poor growth.

The reform initiatives will also ensure aggregate fiscal discipline, increase operational efficiency and give a boost to the government's receipt and payment systems.

He said the newly introduced digital system for pension transfer for the civil servants was only for the existing pensioners.

The government is also working to create a national database to centralise all information of employees to cut bureaucratic tangles faced when drawing pensions, he said.

The initiative is important for all retired civil servants, said Abul Foyez M Abid, controller general of accounts.

Some 657,212 pensioners will get their pensions through EFT, he said. "We launched the system by providing pension to 97 pensioners.”