The Delta State Government through the State Bureau for Pension, has issued a note of warning to pensioners in the state to desist from giving bribe to anyone towards processing their pension benefits, saying that the state government is ever committed to the well-being of civil servants in the state.
The statement said that the government is making quality efforts to ensuring that the state’s retirees will no longer go through pains of countless years of waiting for their pension and other retirement benefits due to them.
This is coming from the Chairman of the Bureau, Edwin Ogidi-Gbegbaje, when he entertained the Nigeria Union of Journalists during a courtesy visit at Asaba, the state capital.
In his words he said : “Anybody who pays money to anyone, for the sake of his or her benefits to be processed, the person is acting on his own. Such person does not have the instruction of the bureau to do so”
Also speaking during the visit, Secretary to the Bureau, Mr. Lawson Efenudu, stated that the Bureau is fully committed to ensuring prompt payment of all retirees’ benefits to both the new and old pension scheme pensioners is properly followed.
“Here, the Contributory Pension scheme is very expensive. The Contributory Pension by law, the employer is to contribute 10 percent, then another five percent and another one percent. That is 16 percent of the total wage bill side by side the salaries the government must pay. We are taking about Contributory Pension alone’’
“We have existing pensioners in the old scheme going on; then you have other arms of government. And when we receive the money, we try to apportion it” he stated.
Speaking on the efforts of the government and Bureau so far, he said that there had not been any form of favoritism in the payment process of pensioners,
Efenudu also mentioned that the government wants retirees “from levels one to six are paid ahead considering that they earn minimal income.
“The pension liability was very huge before this government came in, but Senator Ifeanyi Okowa depleted it to 80 to 90 percent’’
“We would have been off the hook of paying daily, but you know, salaries were increased in 2011, the minimum wage they came about. Salaries was N7500 before and while government was negotiating with Labour to embrace the minimum wage, people were retiring and we paid people with N7500.
“So, when the minimum wage was eventually adopted, what about those that retired with smaller money? The government now did what is called review. That is what they are calling harmonization today, running into billions again’’
The Chairman, Asaba Correspondents Chapel, Ifeanyi Olannye, in his remarks, said that they have observed with nostalgia the pains retirees go through in the country, with Delta state not exempted, while trying to have access to their pension.
“More worrisome is that many have died without accessing their benefits due to delay occasioned by bureaucracy in government” he said.
The chairman also commended Governor Sheriff Oborevwori for his prompt intervention to addressing the challenges of pensioners, retirees and other workers of the state public service.
On their part, one of the retirees who spoke on condition of anonymity, said former Governor Ifeanyi Okowa “did a lot of adjustments and they started paying when Sheriff Oborevwori came in. He also made huge contributions. So, many people who were on queue have been paid, the queue is no longer long. It is not deep into many years again” he said.
