From Ameachi Prosper (The New Diplomat’s Delta Correspondent)
The Association of Contributory Pension (ACR) of Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Delta Council, has lamented that workers who retired under the new scheme were being shortchanged in the payment of their benefits.
The Association Chairman, Mr Avurakoghene Agbaka disclosed this at press conference after its meeting on Wednesday in Asaba.
He pointed out that no fewer than 1,000 of its members were delisted from the pension scheme in the course of harmonising the disparity in benefits between retired state workers and local government workers.
Agbaka said that those civil servants who retired from the state civil service from 2011 have not had a fair share of their pension benefits because they were caught into the contributory pension scheme policy of the state.
He revealed that many years of protest and outcry had prompted Gov. Ifeanyi Okowa to approve the reconciliation to ensure that both retirees of the state and local governments workers receive equal benefits.
According to Agbaka, following the introduction of the contributory pension scheme in the state, consultants were engaged to workout the retirement benefits for workers in the state.
He said though while the consultants engaged to look into the benefits accruing to the local government workers used N18,000 minimum wage for its computation but the one engaged for the state civil service workers, used N7,500 for its computation as at the period.
According to him, the ideal was the use of N18,000 which was the applicable minimum wage at the period.
“Consequently, retirees from the state civil service go home with peanuts compared to their counterparts in the local government”.
He lamented that even after the harmonisation was concluded as directed by the governor, rather than retirees under the scheme fair better, there was little or no change instead most its members were shortchanged or delisted from the scheme.
“We appreciate the governor for approving the review actuarial valuation of accrued pension benefits of workers of the state service from N7,500 to N18, 000 minimum wage tagged ‘harmonisation’.
“And we appreciate him for the three times releases of N300 million instead of N500 million to commence the implementation.
“But we are compelled to hold this press briefing as a medium to inform the governor and the general public that the second actuarial valuation of accrued pension benefits of state workers is conversely to short change the workers and the retirees,” he said.
He noted that the second valuation exercise was a twist of faith from authentication of figures seeing that workers in the state civil service were not at par with their counterparts in the local government whose benefits remained higher.
“The question is why is the government still glued to deliver the inconclusive reports of a consultant and has commenced payment in the midst of complaint and agitation;
“Why the low figure being computed for retirees; the use of pre 2010 data that were earlier corrected; more than 1,000 omitted staff names from report? Agbaka asked.
In a reaction, the State Commissioner for Information, Mr Charles Aniagwu, appealed to the senior citizens to bear with the state government, adding that government was doing its best to support the pensioners in the state.
He noted that the state government was spending close to a billion naira monthly to address issues relating to pensions in the state.
According to him, government spends over N300 million monthly to service those in the pay as go pension scheme.
“Also for those retirees under the contributory pension scheme, another N300 million is paid to service them monthly.
“There is what we also call payment for past services, this is for those who have worked many years before keying into the contributory pension scheme, a computation is done to take care of the backlog and this is costing state government over N300 million monthly.
“I am happy that the retirees acknowledged that the state government is doing something.
“I am not aware of the issues of discrepancy they are talking about; I need to find out what that means, but we must plead with our pensioners, our fathers and mothers who have contributed to the growth of the state to please bear with us.”
Aniagwu, said that in the mixed of all these, that government needed to function, care for those who are currently working and provide infrastructure which would be needed by the retirees too.
He said that government was committed to defray the outstanding backlog payments of pension and to ensure that the scheme runs smoothly in the state.
