Protect senior citizens from the clutches of corruption

The senior citizens of our country, who have tried their best to contribute to society, have every right to live a happy, secure life after retirement. Unfortunately, what ends up happening is them having to depend on relatives. Although the tradition of family supporting the elderly is quite strong in Bangladesh, the worsening economic situation has put at least 48 percent of Bangladesh's households under immense financial pressure, according to a survey of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS).

These families are struggling to take care of the elderly, who are very much dependent on the earning members for food and healthcare. And the number of elderly people is increasing in Bangladesh, with their growth rate being faster than that of the whole population. According to the Population and Household Census 2022, there are 1.53 crore people aged 65 or above in Bangladesh, whereas in 2011, there were 1.02 crore. In such a scenario, it is imperative to ensure that this group is financially independent to help them spend a dignified and happy life.

To this end, the government's universal pension scheme came with a ray of hope which, if implemented properly, can give relative financial safety for the elderly. However, if we look at how authorities are currently administering other pension schemes and social protection programmes for the retired and elderly citizens, we cannot help but become apprehensive about the future of the universal scheme as well.

Except for high-ranking government officers and employees of some autonomous bodies, there are allegations that government employees have to face harassment to get their retirement benefits. They have to pay hefty bribes and wait for an uncertain period to just get their hard-earned money.

On September 22, 2022, a report published in this newspaper revealed that the wife of an officer of the forest department, who died of cancer, had to pay Tk 50,000 as bribe to receive her late husband's retirement benefits. This is just one example of what may happen.

When high-ranking government officials are getting retirement benefits automatically transferred to their bank accounts, the large number of lower-level government and non-government employees, and the elderly and vulnerable people in general, are facing harassment due to a corrupt and primitive fund management system. Without curbing this corruption, the government has imposed a further 27.5 percent tax on provident funds of non-government employees.

In 2019, the Anti-Corruption Commission published a report in which it identified 33 sources of corruption in the finance ministry, and the first source mentioned was pension funds. Officers of the accounts offices regularly received bribes by blocking pension funds or by procrastinating to approve funds, arrears and other financial benefits.

One of the most blatant examples of harassment of elderly citizens can be seen in the crowded rooms of the Non-Government Teacher Employee Retirement Benefit Board. This board was established to disburse pension and retirement benefits of teachers who work in non-government schools but receive a government allowance called MPO. There are around 500,000 MPO-recipient teachers in the country at present.

The government deducts 10 percent of their monthly salary on condition that after retirement these teachers will get a fund equivalent to 100 months' salary. Every month, the teachers contribute Tk 113 crore. However, there are widespread allegations that most of the school teachers have to wait at least for two years to receive their post-retirement benefits. There are many reports in the media that the teachers did not get a single penny even after waiting for five to 10 years after retirement. Many have died and their relatives are now going door-to-door at the board office asking for the funds.

At present, more than 62,000 retired teachers are waiting to get their pension and retirement benefits. Every month, the board receives around 800 new applications from the retiring teachers. Many of them, who do not have any other means of income and are suffering from health complications, badly need the funds they have entrusted to the government. Unfortunately, instead of getting them in a hassle-free manner, they have to bribe officials or wait for an indefinite period.

Every year, the board and related welfare trust need around Tk 1,100 crore to disburse the retirement benefits. However, they can earn only Tk 680 crore from the contributing teachers. The rest of the money was supposed to be paid by the government, which is not done so regularly. As a result, the board and trust suffer from around Tk 300 crore deficits, which leads to sufferings for elderly teachers.

Not only in managing pension funds, the government has also failed miserably to prevent corruption in the disbursement of social protection funds for the elderly people in general. In the fiscal year 1997-98, the then government introduced an allowance for elderly citizens who do not receive pension or any form of allowance from the government. From the current fiscal year, the government has been paying Tk 600 per month as the allowance. However, according to a recent study conducted by the Centre for Policy Dialogue, 3.3 million elderly people, roughly one-third of the elderly population, are not receiving this allowance. Over 2.5 million are not getting widow allowance as well.

The study further reveals that an additional 2.5 million people, who are not eligible at all, are receiving elderly allowance. In this way, every year, the government is wasting Tk 1,500 crore. There are numerous reports in the media describing how local influentials and ruling party activists and leaders are seizing the funds by bribing local government officials.

Meanwhile, the process that is followed to disburse funds is also an agonising and humiliating experience. The elderly citizens, many of whom are sick and weak, have to stand in long queues in the office of the upazila nirbahi officer, which usually doesn't have sunshades or sitting arrangements.

When high-ranking government officials are getting retirement benefits automatically transferred to their bank accounts, the large number of lower-level government and non-government employees, and the elderly and vulnerable people in general, are facing harassment due to a corrupt and primitive fund management system. Without curbing this corruption, the government has imposed a further 27.5 percent tax on provident funds of non-government employees.

Such failure to curb corruption and impractical tax imposition may drive people away from the universal pension scheme out of fear that they will not get their money back when they need it due to corruption, or they will not make any profit due to the heavy tax burden.

When the government is trying to popularise the universal pension scheme, it must prove its commitment to protecting the elderly and vulnerable population by eradicating corruption in the existing pension and social protection programmes. Otherwise, the growing financial hardship will put this group in an extremely desperate situation in the near future.

Md Shahnawaz Khan Chandan is assistant professor at the Institute of Education and Research, Jagannath University. He can be reached at s.nawazk28@yahoo.com.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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