OPINION BY SIMON KOLAWOLE: Killing pension reform softly and steadily | TheCable
Senate President Ahmad Lawan would later boast that President Muhammadu Buhari signed more than 100 bills in four years. He waved that in our face as if it was a contender for Guinness World Record. That usually happens when you take quantity for quality and do not understand the harmful impact of some of your actions on national economic health.
The amazing thing about Nigeria, for me, is how we try to fix what is not broken. When public pensions were the sole responsibility of the government, we were left in arrears of about N2.5 trillion as at 2004, by some estimates. Retired public servants were frustrated. Some regretted ever serving their country. You would not blame them. The truth, however, was that Nigeria had a revenue problem and it always so happened that pension payment was never a main concern.
As a form of compromise, Jonathan approved that the police should have their own PFA but still operating the contributory scheme — which was what he should have done for the military and intelligence agencies in the first place. The police agitation did not stop. The next move was that they came out clearly saying they must exit the contributory scheme and return to the defined system. All kinds of bills were sponsored thereafter, but they all failed because the case was weak.
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