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Pensioners of Abia State parastatals have sent an SOS to the state governor, Alex Otti, to take immediate action to halt the current spate of deaths of their members, following the non-payment of their 13 month’s pension arrears owed them by the Otti administration.
The appeal followed the sudden death of five pensioners, comprising 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 (UCDA) and signed by the chairman, Chinkwe Ikenyi and the Secretary, Chief Ikoro John Ikoro, stated that the deaths occurred in the past two weeks.
Decrying the death of their members, a cross section of pensioners from the five parastatals attributed the deaths to a number of factors, namely their inability to pay for medical bills, pay their accumulated rents and other creditors, pay for their children’s and wards’ education, take care of themselves adequately and pay back debts to their creditors.
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 JAC had earlier lost eight of its members since the state 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 their collective dream.
