Despite efforts of the state government led by Governor Idris Wada towards prompt pension payment in Kogi State, hard times are far from being over for pensioners.
Though there has been remarkable improvement in prompt monthly pensions’ payment, the reverse is the case on the issue of gratuity payment.
Before the present administration of Captain Idris Wada, payment of monthly pensions and gratuities had been problematic. While the situation has changed with the monthly pension payments, gratuity payment is another story.
Since 1995, retirees and or their next of kin, have not been paid gratuity and the pensioners are not finding it funny.
This has created a serious problem for senior citizens of Kogi state.
Speaking with Pension &You, state chairman of Nigeria Union of Pensioners, NUP, Onuh Abdullahi, said the state governor must be applauded for the prompt payment of monthly pensions to both local government and state retirees. His words:
“Since the coming of Captain Idris Wada, the monthly pensions payment of retirees has not stopped. I can tell you that there has not been a spill over to another month since March this year. We have to give him kudos.”
Gratuity, pension harmonisation
“However, I must say what we gained in pension payments, we have lost in gratuity. The state government has failed to meet up in the gratuity of retirees. I can say that only 1991, 1992 and 1994 retirees have received their gratuity.”
Aside the issues of gratuity, Abdulalhi said the state was yet to honour the constitutional provision that pension harmonization should be done every five years.
“The constitution of Nigeria and the Pension Act stipulate that pension harmonisation should be done every five years and whenever there is any salary increment, the pensioners should also be considered.
“As I speak with you, the state has only conducted pension harmonisation once, in 2004. Which means two harmonisations before 2004 were jettisoned and there should have been three others after 2004 that have not been put into consideration. Also, workers have enjoyed salary relativity, minimum wage, 12% increment, 25% increment, but the state has not thought it wise to extend such gesture to the pensioners. Pensioners in the state have only been getting the old salary scale as pensions.”
Pension & You gathered that the state government’s refusal to embark on pension harmonisation is due to suspected inflation of the number of retirees, making the government to vote N5million to the State Pension Board to carry out pensioners verification last October.
“The outcome of the verification as we speak, is yet to see the light of the day,” Abdullahi said.
He added he was not surprised because the union had warned the governor not to give money to the Board since it was the same management that had allegedly been inflating the figures of pensioners.
He however said the union had taken the burden for the verification and conducted a self verification exercise which saw a large difference in the figures of pensioners from the one presented by the Board.
“The verification exercise is just concluded and the report will be sent to the state government. There is a vast difference in the figure. At the end of the exercise, we have 7,864 state retirees and 6,800 local government retirees; a figure that is far from what is being circulated by the Pension Board.”
Pension debt
The state chairman of NUP said the state requires N8billion to off-set the gratuity and pensions arrears of the pensioners.
To him, the monthly contribution of N1million from each of the 21 Local Government Areas and the N50 million from the state government; totaling N71 million’ to settle the backlog of both Local Governments and State retirees gratuities and pensions was a far cry to what was needed.
