By Rabiu Sani
Maiduguri – Alhaji Muhammad Imam, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in Borno, has called on the state government to pay pension arrears owed to pensioners.
The call was contained in a statement signed by the candidate and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Maiduguri.
Imam stressed the need for the state government to pay the retirees, describing their conditions as pathetic.
He said that the situation had exposed the pensioners to hardship despite their selfless contributions to the overall development of the State.
Imam said: “I call on the state government to pay pension and gratuity of the retirees without resorting to delay tactics of establishing a committee or conducting bio-metric exercise.
“This tactics has been poorly handled by those who neither have the expertise nor the ability to efficiently handle it.
“This explains why it has taken too long to complete the bio-metric exercise and making its report public thereby ending sufferings of workers in the state, “ he said.
The PDP governorship candidate wondered why the government could not settle the pension arrears despite the release of the Paris Club refund to the state by the Federal Government.
While calling on the Federal Government to investigate how the state managed the fund, Imam, sympathised with the pensioners over their plights.
The News Agency of Nigeria recalls that Gov. Kashim Shettima, had on Nov. 8 set up an emergency pension committee, sequel to the protest staged by pensioners over alleged nonpayment of their 26-months pension arrears.
The committee was mandated to settle issues relating to the delay in the payment of pensioners’ entitlements within two weeks.
Shettima disclosed that the bio-metric verification exercise, assisted the state government in uncovering 12,000 ghost workers on its payroll and saved N500 million monthly.
“More than 33,000 workers were on the payroll of Borno State Government for many years, resulting in government having to pay more than N2.5 billion monthly on salaries,” he said.
Shettima revealed that sequel to the bio-metric exercise; 20,154 persons were identified as genuine workers, while 2,000 of them were preparing to retire from service.
The governor described the bio-metric exercise as “very complex,’’ noting that some people were discovered engaging in fraudulent collection of millions as pensions aside from their salaries.
According to him, more than 9,000 pensioners have already been cleared and enrolled through the bio-metric exercise, adding that they were currently receiving their pensions promptly.
Shettima noted that of the 500 pensioners who had cases with their bio-metrics, 171 of them were cleared by the committee.
The governor, however, lamented that the affected pensioners failed to submit their bank details to facilitate their enrollment into the system.