ENUGU PENSIONERS GROAN IN PENURY, CALL FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF HARMONISED PENSION
REPORTER: CHUKWUBUIKE MADU
Do you know that some pensioners in Enugu State are paid less than #500 per month, even at that, they are still owed?
The reason is because the state has not implemented any of the approved harmonised pension schemes.
The Chairman, Nigeria Union of Pensioners in Enugu State, Comrade Ikechukwu Ekere who showed Radio Nigeria a payment list where some pensioners earn less than #500 per month as pathetic, noting that the money is not even enough to bring them to the venue of the intermittent verifications they attend.
“Looking at this place, you can find out that somebody is going home with #475.26 (four hundred and seventy-five naira twenty-six Kobo) and this amount doesn’t come regularly and it can’t buy him drug,” Comrade Ekere said.
Also, an elders statesman, Chief Nduka Eya, who retired as a permanent secretary, lamented that his pension and some of his colleagues were a far cry from what they should earn as the money could not pay for their medical bills and other needs associated with old age.
“It was ridiculous that after being a permanent secretary for 8 years, I get #25,600. Isn’t that less than the approved #30,000 minimum wage?
“We have written petitions, we have complained but nobody is even talking about it. And it is the onus of the Head of Service to take this matter up,” Chief Eya complained bitterly.
Chief Eya and the Chairman, Enugu State branch of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Comrade Ekere, blamed the abysmal pension payment on failure of the state to implement any of the harmonised pension schemes, claiming that various administrations in Enugu and the Nigerian state had no regard for their senior citizens.
“All these things are because Enugu State has never had harmonisation of pension. We have had at least 4 harmonisation: 6%, 12%, 15%.
“We are begging his Excellency, even if he starts with 6%, the first harmonisation, it will go a long way in helping the pensioners,” Comrade Ekere appealed.
For Chief Nduka Eya: “there are laws about pension, that after certain number of years you review the situation. You can see what the Naira is worth now.
“Nigeria does not cater for its elderly at all. Why are they punishing people unduly? Have we done ill for serving our nation fruitfully, successfully and patriotically?”
Meanwhile, there are three categories of pensioners in Enugu State.
They are pensioners of the core ministries; those of the local government, including retired primary school teachers; and the pensioners of the parastatals.
Investigations by Radio Nigeria revealed that the pensioners of the core ministries were more regularly paid.
In the words of Comrade Ekere: “coming to the core civil servants, we received our last pension for the month of February. So no March, no April yet. And this month of February, those in the commercial banks have gotten theirs but those in micro finance banks have not gotten.”
Comrade Ekere, however, pointed out that the last gratuity paid to pensioners of the core ministries was in 2010.
“Since that 2010 nothing has been paid and we have written to his Excellency because his Excellency was bringing out #100 million every month to be clearing the backlog of gratuity but later stopped.
“But what we are begging is even if it is #50 million monthly, let us start it again so that gradually this thing will be easing off,” he suggested.
For the local government pensioners, it is a different ball game as the Chairman, Retired Primary School Teachers in Enugu State, Comrade Like Apeh, said their latest pension payment was that of October 2020, though he explained why was so.
“Our situation is pathetic in the nature that up to 3 previous governments have been owing. So by the regime of the present governor, who has been trying to pay backlogs of debts owed to retired primary school teachers.
“Till this moment, they only paid October 2020. He has never paid for his own time,” Comrade Apeh noted.
Comrade Apeh was also embittered that the last gratuity paid retired teachers was in 2005, a development he described a pitiable.
The lamentations of the pensioners of the core ministries and local government might be a tip of the iceberg as there are more pitable and shocking condition of other pensioners.
Perhaps, the worst hit are pensioners of the state parastatals.
The Chairman, Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Enugu State Water Corporation branch, Comrade Christopher Udeh, stated that they were owed over 130 months of pension, just as their gratuity remained unpaid.
“Enugu State Government is owing us 135 months arrears of pension. The thing started in 2004 during Chimaroke Nnamani’s government.
“We have gone to the Governor of Enugu State, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, more than 6 times, he had been promising. Since he came on board, Enugu State Government has not paid us pension except 5 times, from 2015 till date.
“We are not talking about gratuity because he has never paid gratuity even for once, in spite of the fact that gratuity is the money the deducted from our salary while we were working,” Comrade Ude cried out.
Meanwhile, when Radio Nigeria contacted the Enugu State Head of Service, Mr. Ken Chukwuegbo, he declined to react to the call by pensioners for the implementation of the harmonised pension schemes, claiming that the issue of pension payment is in court.
