Five retired Kogi State Heads of Service (HOSs) and 52 permanent secretaries have threatened to sue the government fot the non-payment of their harmonised statutory pension allowances.
The 57 aggrieved pensioners, under the aegis of Association of Retired Heads of Service and Permanent Secretaries, expressed their displeasure in a letter to Governor Idris Wada yesterday in Lokoja, the state capital.
The letter by the aggrieved pensioners’ Chairman, J. O. Mesole and Secretary, John Ausa, accused the government of placing them on 50 per cent pension since December, 2011.
They said the government was owing them N11.3 million monthly.
The retired senior civil servants regretted that nine of their members had died since 2012 while waiting for their pensions.
According to them, they had reached the limit of their patience and would take legal action to protect their rights, as enshrined in the Constitution.
The pensioners said their counterparts, who retired after December 2011, were receiving their full pensions, while 57 of them, who retired before the 2011 harmonisation, were placed on 50 per cent part-payment.
The letter reads: “Heads of Service and Permanent Secretaries are in the management cadre. They are also on consolidated pay (not on salary grade level) and earn 100 per cent of their total emoluments as pension for life.
“For this reasons, their pensions are to be automatically harmonised to be at par with the pay of their serving counterparts with effect from the date there is pay rise for them. Their own case of harmonisation is different.”
The association noted that withholding pension or part of it violated Section 210(2) of the Constitution, which states that a pension shall not be withheld or altered to the disadvantage of a pensioner.
They said: “Asking us to wait until the finances of government would have improved before our request could be granted is as good as saying we should wait indefinitely or that we should forget about the request.”
The retirees said they were not unaware of the financial position of the state, adding that they would not ask for payment of arrears from December 2011 till date but the approval for full implementation from July 1, 2015.
They said: “All we are requesting is for Your Excellency to kindly approve, with effect from July 1, 2015, payment of the fully consolidated and harmonised pension of the five retired HOS and 52 permanent secretaries.”
The Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Prof. Olugbemiro Jegede, acknowledged receipt of two letters from the association on the arrears of 50 per cent of their harmonised pension.
He called for their understanding, saying the state was going through “a very difficult, excruciatingly painful financial crunch at the moment”.
