Our Reporter
Pensioners under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) are agitating for pension increase as it applies to pensioners under the old scheme, the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS).
They are calling on the National Pension Commission (PenCom) to make provision for pension increases for them.
The pensioners under the umbrella body of NTA Association of Contributory Pensioners (NTA-ACPEN) further criticised the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) for its lack of care on their issues.
The Chairman, NTA-ACPEN, Gbadebo Olatokunbo, in an interview with The Nation, said pensioners under the CPS especially those who retired from public service need to benefit from the new national minimum wage.
Referring to the new minimum wage bill which was recently signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari few months ago, Olatokunbo stated that Section 173(3) of Nigeria’s constitution states that “Pension shall be reviewed every five years or together with any Civil Service Salary Reviews, whichever is earlier”.
He said: “We have been trying to get the attention of President Muhammadu Buhari, PenCom and other stakeholders to look into our plight and make us to earn pension that is sustainable. Government believes that Pension Reform Act is taking care of our needs but this is not so.
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“The NUP that is supposed to come to our aid does not cater for the affairs of contributory pensioners. But they have been creating the impression that they cover all pensioners.
They didn’t welcome us as members because when the scheme was introduced, the Federal Government failed to include many benefits enjoyed under the old pension scheme into the new scheme.
While the constitution says all Federal Government pensioners must enjoy the same privileges on welfare, we have been abandoned.
“NUP did not see us as partners and failed to carry us along and neither tried in assisting us in solving many of the lapses of the Federal Government at the inception of the new scheme.
We have written to all government agencies concerning contributory pensioners’ plights. The NUP is on board of PenCom, but only representing the interest of the old pensioners.
NUP is pretending that we the contributory pensioners don’t exist while all our memos to PenCom on our plights were treated with levity because the representative of NUP known to them have nothing to do with our complaints. We are calling on the Federal Government to come to our aid as we are suffering”, he added.
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