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The Abia State parastatals pensioners have sent an SOS to Governor Alex Otti of Abia State to take immediate action to halt the current spate of deaths of their endangered members following the non-payment of their 13-month pension arrears owed them by the Otti Administration.
The appeal was necessitated by the sudden death of five pensioners – two from the Broadcasting Corporation of Abia State (the BCA) and three from the Abia Newspapers and Publishing Corporation recently.
A statement from the Joint Action Committee (JAC), an umbrella body coordinating pensioners from the BCA, the Abia Newspapers, the Council for Arts and Culture, the Abia State Housing and Property Development Corporation and the Umuahia Capital Development Authority (U.C.D.A) and signed by the Chairman, Comrade Chinkwe Ikenyi and the Secretary Chief Ikoro John Ikoro, stated that the deaths occurred in the past two weeks.
Lamenting the death of their members, a cross-section of pensioners from these five parastatals attributed their death to several factors, namely: their inability to pay serious medical bills, pay their accumulated rents owed to their landlords and other creditors, pay for their children’s and wards’ education, take care of themselves adequately and pay back their heavy debts to their creditors.
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They recalled that during the 13-month period in which their pensions were not paid, most of their members resorted to borrowing money to survive at exorbitant interest rates under the country’s prevailing oppressive economy.
While the issue of payment of gratuity is being addressed by the Government, they prayed the Government to settle the 13-month pension arrears incurred by the Otti Administration soonest to arrest further deaths of the pensioners arising from untold hardship being endured by them.
It would be recalled that the Joint Action Committee (JAC) had earlier lost 8 of its members since the Government started owing them pensions.
The document affirmed the support of its members to the Otti Administration and its drive to realise a New Abia of our collective dream.
