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From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Pensioners of five parastatals in Abia have sent a Save Our Soul message to Governor Alex Otti to pay them 13 months arrears of pension owed them by the present administration.
The parastatals include the Broadcasting Corporation of Abia (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).
In a statement jointly signed by the Chairman, Comrade Chinkwe Ikenyi, and Secretary, Chief Ikoro John Ikoro, noted that all the five parastatals passionately appealing to be paid their pension arrears were scheduled, duly gazetted, and therefore pensionable by the Abia State Government.
The pensioners recalled that the governor stopped the payment of pensions to the parastatals in question in December 2023, on the alleged premise that the parastatals were not ‘verifiable’.
“This led to the pensioners writing Your Excellency in June 2024, and submitting documents which made them scheduled and, therefore, pensionable by the Abia State Government.
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“After this, Your Excellency approved for the verification of these parastatal pensioners. Your Excellency also approved the resumption of payment of our pensions in January, 2025 (13 months after).
“We thank Your Excellency that ever since the resumption of the payment of our pensions, the payment has been regular, together with other pensioners in the state.”
The pensioners, however, said despite the current regular payment of their monthly pensions, they still cannot get out from the problems the 13 months of non-payment of pensions owed them brought to them.
They itemised what they are currently passing through to include untold hardship; heavy debts to their creditors at exorbitant rates; inability to pay for the high cost of health maintenance and loss to death of 13 of their members.
Going further, the aggrieved pensioners said, “Curiously, our counterparts in the ministry, with whom we enjoy the same status of being pensionable, are not being owed anything by Your Excellency. Rather, during the time you owed them 60 percent of their pensions for 10 months, you eventually cleared these arrears.
“Your Excellency, we passionately appeal that you put us on a par with pensioners who retired from the ministry by being paid our 13 months pension arrears before the payment of impending gratuity”, the pensioners added.
