The present Adamawa State Pension Board is really in rescue of the pensioners that are finding it difficult to survive after retiring from the service.
The present administration of Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintri has made the right choice by appointing a seasoned administrator, Mr John Medugu, as the chairman to steer the ship at the board.
Things have started yielding positive results as the board under the chairmanship of this personality has jumpstarted the process of harmonizing the payment to be made to those not captured since their retirement about two to three years ago.
For 13 years, local government pensioners in Adamawa State were apparently neglected until the coming of Governor Fintri.
Immediately after assuming office, Governor Fintri directed for the upward review of the monthly allocation for the gratuity of the local government retired workers from the paltry sum of N3.5m to N14million.
The appointment of Mr Medugu as the chairman of the pension board is the best thing that has happened. Due to his dexterity and total commitment, Governor Fintri graciously added N10.5 million to enable the board offset the backlog of arrears owned the pensioners.
The chairman initiated a certain palliative each month for about 100 pensioners to get something out of their gratuity for those who retired based on medical and health ground.
The palliative is to cushion the hardship of the pensioners as the board at the moment cannot offset the arrears for the 6,323 pensioners on government payroll.
Medugu is so much concerned with the plight of the pensioners, who meritously served for 35 years and it is now time for them to enjoy their retirement life, but are constrained because of lack of adequate funds to pay gratuity to them.
The chairman has already swung into action by alleviating the problem of quite a sizeable number of pensioners within a very period of less than one year in office.
He adopted a very stringent measure by not paying through the back door. Every thing should be done in a transparent manner devoid of any misdemeanor of any kind in the board.
The chairman believes in the saying that one’s reward is in heaven. He is assiduously working round the clock to see that the pensioners in the local government administration in Adamawa State are paid all their gratuities.
He is, therefore, in a hurry to actualizing the core mandate given to him by Governor Fintri, in normalizing all sorts of payment of retired local government employees of the 21 local government areas in Adamawa State.
• By Usman Santuraki, a public affairs analyst, Demsawo, Jimeta, Yola