Retirees demand pension payments from Islamic Emirate

KABUL (TOLOnews): A number of retirees are once again demanding the payment of their pensions by the Islamic Emirate.

Some of those who have gathered outside the Pension Fund office say they are facing various economic challenges in the current situation.

Abdul Hakim, a retiree, said: “I need to be fed; they should give me my pension and also pay my other friends. When my friend beside me is hungry, what can I say?”

Another retiree, Zubair, told TOLOnews: “We are bewildered, have no way out, and lack the strength to go anywhere. We come here to the pension office gate from morning till evening. My children’s empty stomachs hope that their father will bring home a piece of bread or fruit.”

These retirees are once again demanding the payment of their pensions by the Islamic Emirate.

Habibullah, a retiree, said: “For the past three years, they have been saying ten days later, twenty days later, after Eid. Eid came, and they said after Eid. Ramadan came, and they didn’t pay. We were finally forced to go to the Ministry of Finance and the Administrative Office.”

Zarifa, a retiree, told a TOLOnews reporter: “We want our rights, we want our pensions. We don’t have a single piece of bread at home right now.”

Although the Islamic Emirate has not recently commented on the payment of pensions, their spokesperson previously stated, without mentioning the retirees, that efforts have been made to consider the needs of all eligible groups in the budget for the fiscal year 1403.