Fact-check: Fake notification shared online about cut in pension of government employees

Multiple online accounts have claimed that the government has drastically cut the pension of retired employees, and as per a new policy officials will now receive a pension based on the salary they were paid when first recruited in the civil service.

The claim is false. There is no such policy.

Claim

On June 13, a Facebook user shared a purported government notification, alongside a claim that earlier when an official retired he/she was entitled to a pension based on years in service and the last pay slip. In addition to which, the users added, an employee also received a commutation fund.

“But now the government has a new policy that pension will be given on the basis of the initial basic pay of a person, therefore the pay when a person first joined the government service,” the user wrote.

The user further alleged that there was no point in working for the government for several years anymore.

The post had been shared over 600 times on Facebook, at the time of writing.

Similar claims were shared on X, formerly Twitter, here and here.

Fact

The notification circulating on social media was fake, say officials, adding that no such policy was under consideration.

A senior official of the ministry of finance, who asked not to be named, said the claims were “baseless” and “absolutely false”. “This is not even under consideration,” he added, over the phone.

Geo Fact Check then reached out to the finance department of the Punjab government. “To the extent of the Punjab government, this claim is totally false,” said an official, who asked to remain anonymous.

Geo Fact Check also spoke to Kashif Shahzad Choudhry, the president of the Punjab Teachers Union. Choudhry confirmed that the claims were “incorrect”, and he had not seen any such notification.

With additional reporting by Fayyaz Hussain.

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