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THE government has a $28.6 million backlog of unprocessed pension benefits to its workers which date back to April last year due to limited revenue inflows, Parliament heard on Wednesday.

Tourism and Hospitality Minister Walter Mzembi, who was representing Public Service, Labour and Social Services Minister Prisca Mupfumira, admitted to delays in the processing of pension benefits for retired civil servants.

He was responding to Gokwe Member of the National Assembly, Dorothy Mangami, who asked how long it takes the government to process pension packages and demanded a report on the current payment backlog.

The Zanu-PF legislator also implored the government to consider giving monthly pensions to pensioners immediately after they cease working as opposed to paying them after the processing of lump sums, which usually takes a long time to be processed.

“As at the end of March 2015 there were 1,513 cases whose commutations (lump sum) had not been paid dating back to April 2014. The accumulated value of these lump sums is $28,585,607,” Mzembi responded.

“The lead time for processing and paying of pension benefits as per the Public Service Commission’s Client Service Charter is two months after date of retirement.”

He, however, said the two-month processing timeline was affected by two main factors.

“The first one relates to delays by ministries to submit required documents to the Public Service Commission. Ministries are required to submit pension application forms to the Public Service Commission two months prior to the date of retirement,” said Mzembi.

“But more often than not, documents arrive at the commission after date of retirement. The second issue relates to unavailability of financial resources.”

For the past two years, said the minister, Treasury has been putting a limit on its monthly expenditure bill and that the cap on figures has resulted in a huge backlog of unprocessed pension benefits.

The minister clarified why the monthly pensions were given out after computation and payment of a lump sum pension.

He said the Public Service Commission adopted this strategy in 2013 after a realisation that pensioners needed money for rentals, medication, insurance policies and other household needs.

Meanwhile, monthly payments are up to date, said Mzembi.