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John Adams in Minna
The Niger State government has said that it has expended well over N20 billion on the payment of pension and retirement benefits to retirees in the state in the last four years, even as it denied allegations financial scam in the Pensions Board.
The government said the payments included death benefits as well as contract gratuities left unpaid for several years.
The Director General of the state pension board, Alhaji Tinau Mohammed, in a statement in Minna on Friday pointed out that the present administration has remained committed to payment of the benefits of retirees since inception.
In the same vein, the government disclosed that those reverted to the old pension scheme from the Contributory Pension Scheme by the new pension law in the state were refunded their 7.5 percent contribution and their benefits paid.
“This particular action is adjudged as the most unprecedented gesture by any government in the history of pension administration in any state across the federation,” Mohammed said.
The disclosures by the government was were made in reaction to a recent petition by a group under the auspices of “Concerned Citizens” of the state, who petitioned the state governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello, asking him to as a matter of urgency, investigate what the group called “large scale financial scam” in the state pension board.
The group in its petition expressed worries that despite the billions of Naira released to the board for regular payment of retirees pension and gratuity, the plight of the pensioners was better imagined than experienced.
The group in a strong two page petition letter addressed to the governor dated 11th December, 2019 and signed by it Chairman, Alhaji Awaisu Guwahati Kuta and Secretary, Adamu Lambata, and made available to our correspondent in Minna, urged the governor to immediately ordered full investigation into the state pension board.
The group said: “We have taken this decision to intimate you because we are aware of your concern for the plight of our retirees and the act of sabotage by the implementing agency.
