The Rastriya Beema Sansthan (RBS)’s administrator, Ram Bahadur Khadka, has resumed his usual job in his office after being barred for two and half months, forbidden to enter into the office of the employees’ unions. After Khadka moved the proposal of splitting the RBS into two entities, one dealing with life and another with non-life, the employees barred him from entering into the office, claiming that the move was taken without proper consultation. They also put forward various demands, including an automatic promotion by one position to allow Khadka to undertake duties of the chief of the RBS. Khadka, who started normal office work at the RBS from last week, said he was allowed to enter into the office and handle the management only after the management reached a three-point agreement with the employees’ unions. As per the agreement, a nine member committee, comprising of one representative from each of the four employees’ unions, has been formed to recommend relevant benefits to be provided to the RBS staff after the separation of the RBS. The RBS staffers have also agreed to help management in finding the relevant old document to help in the auditing process. An audit has not taken place in the last seven years and the insurance board has not approved the audit reports from the previous three years. The RBS board assured them that they would make a plea to the Finance Ministry to reconsider the employees’ demands. Earlier, the ministry sent back the employees’ 17 point demands to the RBS, terming them unjustified and could not be fulfilled. According to Khadka, the employees took back steps after the RBS board and Finance Ministry assured them that their demands could not be fulfilled at the time when the Election Code of Conduct has come into effect. The Finance Ministry has already decided not to entertain the demands of employees until the RBS is split, its due auditing of the last seven years is completed and until its license to carry out insurance business is renewed by the Insurance Board. Raja Babu Khadka, vice president of the Nepal Bittiya Sanstha Employees Union, said they halted their demand for now after the RBS management assured them that their demands would be reconsidered during the process of splitting the public enterprise into two entities. Om Baral, general secretary at the RBS Employee Union said they agreed to step back on their demand, citing the upcoming election. “We have put off our protests for now, as both the RBS board and the Finance Ministry have assured us they will review their existing stance and reconsider our demands.” Earlier, the unions had come into protest demanding that employees of both the institutions be automatically promoted one position higher and be allowed to subscribe to public shares issued by non-life insurance. Other demands included bringing both of the entities under the Company Act after the RBS is separated. However, the RBS management had been denying their demand, reasoning that they could not be brought under the Company Act as long as the RBS Act was in place. On the other hand, the employees’ unions have been accused of forcing the management to make unauthorised decisions regarding the benefit of employees, including telephone allowance, medical allowance and increasing the scope of loan that employees could receive from the RBS. After the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) directed the government to recover prize allowances worth Rs 80 million from the RBS employees, the Finance Ministry has already written to the RBS for the same.
Posted on: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 03:23:18 +0000
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