Tag: unpaid arrears

Aggrieved pensioners yesterday in Owerri, the Imo State capital, protested the non-payment of their arrears and gratuities.
The protesters barricaded major roads around the city, making vehicular movement difficult.
They faulted the state government’s alleged directive that they forfeit 60 percent of their accumulated pensions and gratuities.
The pensioners were earlier given a form to fill by the state government.
The form reads: “I voluntarily accept the payment due to economic situation in the country presently. I do hereby release and discharge the Imo State Government and its agents from all past, present and future liabilities and from all actions, claims and demands in respect of the said accumulated pension arrears.”
The protesters, who took over the streets as early as 6.30 a.m, displayed placards with various inscriptions, such as: ”Asking pensioners to forfeit 60 per cent of their pension arrears is evil”; Forty per cent proposal of payment of pension arrears is fraudulent”; “Pay the much you can source, government is a continuum”; “Government project is for the living, not for the dead”; and “We need our 100 per cent pension arrears period.”
Addressing reporters at the Okigwe Road Roundabout, opposite the Government House in Owerri, Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) State Chairman Gideon Ezeji said the pensioners embarked on the protest because of the government’s inability to pay their accumulated arrears.
The union leader said efforts to compel the government to treat the matter with the urgency it deserved fell on deaf ears.
He said the government compelled the pensioners to collect 40 per cent of the accumulated arrears and forfeit the remaining 60 per cent.
The NUP chairman listed the unpaid arrears to include civil pensioners, 22 months; local government retirees, 23 months; Imo Broadcasting Corporation (IBC), 43 months; retired permanent secretaries, 22 months; primary school teachers, 32 months and Alvan Ikoku College of Education retirees, 77 months.
He said: “We say no to 40 per cent payment of arrears of pension and call on the state government to pay us 100 per cent before December 23.”
But in a statement by the Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the Governor, Mr. Sam Onwuemeodo, the government described the protesters as union leaders who were angry that the pensioners were paid directly.
The government said this made it impossible for them to deduct the money from the pensioners.
The statement said: “Our attention has been drawn to a group of about 100 people or thereabout, said to have come on protest the agreed arrangement to pay pensioners whose grades fall between Level 7 and Level 14, 40 per cent of their pension arrears, while those on Grade Level One to Six would have 100 per cent payment. We are talking about a state with more than 30,000 pensioners with monthly pension bill of N1.4 billion.
“To say the least, we have our doubt whether or not these people on protest are actually pensioners, considering their youthful age and considering too the popular acceptance of the arrangement by most of the pensioners in the state.

“Granted that some of the leaders of the Pensioners’ Union had complained that direct payment to the pensioners through the ward Coordinators of the State Development Councils (SDC) would deny them the money they were deducting from source from the account of each of the pensioners, but the larger interest of the pensioners should come first…”
The statement continued that, “Governor had, out of genuine concern decided to pay the more than thirty thousand Pensioners in the State all their Pension arrears to enable the perennial issue of pension arrears addressed once and for all. “The Pensioners have done their own part by signing the forms accordingly and the government is set to begin the payment. So, the few ones who have refused to Cooperate may have their reasons, but in every setting, those who are few in number do not impose their decision or action on the majority.”

Pensioners in Imo State, under the aegis of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), yesterday threatened to cripple government and economic activities over their unpaid pensions since 2014.

The union vowed to begin massive protests in Owerri, the state capital, today.

Its stste chairman, Chief Gideon Ezeji, addressed reporters yesterday in Owerri.

The union leader noted that contrary to the claims by the government that it had cleared 12 years of pension arrears, the state’s pensioners had not been paid since 2014.

Ezeji, who said Governor Rochas Okorocha started well with the pensioners at the beginning of his administration, added that the government only paid pensioners from 2011 till December 2014.

He said: “It is on record that apart from some selected payments made to some pensioners last October, the Imo State Government is owning pensioners, as at May 2016, as follows: civil servants, 16 months; local government pensioners, 17 months; retired teachers, 26 months and Imo Broadcasting Corporation pensioners, 36 months.

“The claim by Governor Okorocha during his fifth year anniversary celebration that he paid pensioners 12 years’ pension arrears is far from the truth. He did not pay us such money because when he assumed office, the unpaid monthly pension was two months, which he paid with the July 2011 pension.”

Ezeji said the union’s members would protest today the refusal of the government to pay their pensions.

He said: “We see the present neglect of Imo State pensioners by Governor Okorocha as a calculated policy to send us to untimely graves. We came to this conclusion because after the government/labour agreement of February 10, 2016, which allocated 70 per cent of state revenue for salaries and pensions he is still bent on not paying us right now, we have lost many of our members.”

But Commissioner for Internal Resources and Pension Matters, Chief Vitalis Ajumbe, said the government was doing everything possible to pay the pensioners, given the current economic situation.

The commissioner assured that the payment of the next batch of pensioners would hold after the ongoing verification.

He added that the government had been grappling with a bloated wage bill, especially on pensioners.