Khalid Abdallah Al Ziyara
Many citizens have contributed to the drafting of the long-awaited law that will protect the rights of state employees who have spent their entire life serving the government.
Dr Rabia Al Kuwari dealt with this issue in a series of articles that highlighted the feeling of hurt in the community, questioning in one of the pieces in Al Sharq newspaper the unconvincing reasons given for the delay in issuing the pension law and the human resources law, and for not approving the end of service benefits law.
We wonder why a lot of employees and retirees in the state complain about this delay without knowing the real reason behind it.
Everyone is saying that the end of service law has been repeatedly studied by experts, but so far there is no sign of it being approved in the near future, as promised by officials.
They had promised to create the best social security system in the world. We are not sure if it would be the best system, or if it is about to be issued. Was it just a statement meant to please people and raise hopes of better news?
What has cheered government workers and the rest of us is the news that in early April the Minister of Administrative Development ordered the formation of a working group to study the end of service benefits for Qatari employees.
The head of the working group will present the results of the study to the Minister of Administrative Development within three weeks. We have crossed April 21, which was the last date for the announcement of the results, so where are they?
The formation of the working group to examine the end of service benefits raises the important question of repaying the employees of ministries, government bodies and institutions after they were denied this right for 12 years, since the law of retirement came into effect on March 6, 2003.
This emphasises the ineligibility of employees to get a bonus as well as the pension, except in the case of those who have spent more than 20 years in service.
Qatari employees are looking forward to this bonus, with the hope that the group will reconsider the rules that regulate the end of civil service bonus. Thousands benefited for decades from this until the law on retirement and pensions remained valid.
The end of service benefits law was issued before the pension law. An employee who had spent a year in service was eligible for end of service benefits — a month’s salary for each of the first five years of service, a month and a half’s salary for each of the next five years of service, and two months’ salary for each year thereafter; the law considers the last salary part of the bonus.
We all hoped to hear from the working group formed by the Minister of Administrative Development to study the end of service benefits for Qatari employees, as many have been waiting for a decision in this regard for several years.
