RBS asked to recover ‘prize allowance’ from employees

KATHMANDU, SEP 13 :

The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has directed the Rastriya Beema Sansthan ( RBS ) to recover more than Rs 80 million from its incumbent and retired employees who have been receiving the amount as “prize allowance” for the last two decades.

Although the “prize money” should have been awarded to individuals making great contribution to the institution, the allowance was found to be given to all employees over the last several years, a source at the Finance Ministry said.

After the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority repeatedly wrote to the ministry to recover the amount, the latter asked the RBS management to do so.

RBS employees have been drawing an additional one month’s salary as “prize allowance” every year since 1994.

“We have asked the RBS to recover the amount distributed illegally as fast as possible,” said the ministry source.

However, the employees claimed they have been receiving the allowance as per the decision of the Cabinet during the late Manamohan Adhikari-led government in 1994.

“The then government had decided to provide such a facility to employees of public enterprises making profits and facing competition from the private sector,” said Tulak Prasad Dhungana, central committee member of the RBS Employees’ Union. “The Finance Ministry had also approved the facility in writing at that time.”

RBS Administrator Ram Bahadur Khadka said he has already directed senior RBS managers to recover the amount. He said he was considering other ways to compensate the employees while implementing the CIAA’s directive. Khadka has been barred from entering his office by the employees’ unions for the last two months, but is allowed to attend board meetings.

Dhungana, on the other hand, said the RBS board should now convince the ministry and the CIAA on how the RBS employees received the facility. Altogether, RBS employees receive 23 month’s salary in a year, according to the ministry source.

Amid intense pressure from the employees’ unions, the RBS board recently decided to provide a telephone allowance of Rs 700 for junior staff and Rs 1,000 for senior staff every month. “As our employee bylaw has provisioned such a facility, the board took the decision,” said Dhungana.

The RBS board has also decided to increase the loan amount the employees could receive to Rs 3.5 million from the current Rs 2.5 million. The interest rate on the loan is negligible.

Other decisions of the board include providing additional retirement benefits such as a certain months’ salary for each year served and medical facility of Rs 500,000 for employees turning seriously ill.

As the RBS employee bylaw does not speak anything about these additional facilities, implementing them requires approval from the Finance Ministry. However, the ministry

has made it clear that it would not entertain their demands until the RBS is split into two entities—one dealing in life insurance business and another non-life business.

“We have forwarded the RBS a minister-level decision that the employees’ demands will not be entertained until the RBS split, until its due auditing of the last seven years are completed, and until the new entities after the split acquire licenses from the Insurance Board,” said the ministry source.

However, the employee unions are firm that they would allow administrator Khadka to enter his office only if he secures approval from the ministry on the recent board decisions on the facilities for the employees.

Source: The Kathmandu Post