About 272 public servants nationwide who are retiring will be finally paid out their entitlements under batch one of 2024 after the Deeds of Release (DOR) for these public servant retirees were approved and sent to Treasury for the release of funding, with a date to be set for them to be paid. Department of Personnel Management (DPM) Secretary, Ms. Taies Sansan, said that this is the second batch of retirees for year 2023; however, due to circumstances beyond our control, they will receive their retirement payments this year as the first batch of 2024. The 272 retirees from 21 government agencies will be paid out a cost of K17.5 Million. “The retirement exercise has been on-going since 2019 and our retirement team validated these 272 public servants who have reached retirement age to be retired and paid out of the Public Service,” said Ms. Sasan. Once these public servants get paid out their entitlements, their names will be terminated on the government’s Alesco Payroll system. “Retirement is a normal attrition that is undertaken by the agencies to retire their aging workforce and submit names to DPM for file checks and validation processes.” Secretary Sansan said the DPM has taken a whole of government approach to administer the retirement exercise and retire public servants in collaboration with Treasury and Finance. “The approach we have taken to identify retirees is through the Alesco payroll, and then we write to the agencies to confirm and submit names of those who have reached the compulsory retirement age to DPM.” Secretary Sansan said retiring the aging public servants has been heavily dependent upon availability of funding to pay them out and that is why many have remained on the payroll until such time funding is available to pay them out. The Government has been helpful as since 2019, a total of K234 Million has been expanded to pay out the retirees. “I thank the government for its commitment to this cause,” said the DPM Secretary. Ms. Sansan is appealing to all government agencies to play their part in retiring their ageing workforce, to fast track the retirement process for 2024 as funding has been made available in the 2024 Budget. Meanwhile, the 21 agencies whose officers are being retired are: · Autonomous Region of Bougainville (1), · Central PA (2), · Central PHA (1), · Cocoa Board (5), · Department of Implementation and Rural Development (2), · East Sepik PA (33), · East New Britain PHA (34), · Enga PA (25), · Enga PHA (13), · Madang PHA (42), · NBC (16), · NCD PHA (1), · NSO (4), · PNGDF (37), · Police Uniform (2), · Public Solicitor’s Office (1), · Simbu PA · Simbu PHA (2), · SHPA (2), · SHPHA (26), and · WNBPHA (15).