ABIODUN NEJO writes that the alternative strategy being proposed by the Ekiti State Government for the payment of pensions and gratuities to willing senior citizens is raising dust In most states of
the federation, the problem of payment of backlog of pensions and gratuities to retirees has defied solutions despite efforts of successive administrations.
Sources among pensioners in the state said the arrears of their gratuities stood at N13.5bn, while those of pensions were about N2.7bn when Fayemi assumed office in October 2018. The veterans, in a statement by their Chairman and Secretary, Chief Lawrence Egunjobi and Segun Onaade, respectively, alleged that “the state government deliberately stopped the N100m monthly allocation to offset the backlog of gratuities, which piled up owing to the stoppage of payment of gratuitiees in the state in 2012.”
“The council’s approval of the voluntary alternative payment instrument is premised on Governor Fayemi’s conviction that every worker is worthy of their wages during their life time,” he stated. But the organised labour in the state said the state government made a mistake in the matter of the pensioners’ pay mode by not carrying the workers’ bodies along, according to a statement by the state chairmen of the NLC, Kolapo Olatunde; Trade Union Congress, Sola Adigun; and Joint Negotiating Council, Kayode Fatomiluyi, and their secretaries.
Kumapayi said the pensioners did not understand what the state government meant by its statement that it would pay as much as 50 per cent of the outstanding on or before the end of the administration in 2022. “Right now, everybody takes full gratuities; you cannot make it voluntary for people to take their gratuities. We cannot understand the aspect of voluntary. We really want to know the type of financial arrangement that the government wants to make.
According to the financial home, there is another option, which is for the pensioners to wait till when the government will have the ability to pay. The PDP State Caretaker Committee Secretary, Diran Odeyemi, who alleged that state government had concluded plans to secure over N40bn loan to pay the pensions and gratuities, accused Fayemi of plotting to loot over N6bn of the amount through a discount of 15 per cent from pensioners desirous of getting their pensions and gratuities.
“During Fayemi’s first tenure, when Ekiti State was receiving as much as N7bn monthly allocation and over N46bn from the Excess Crude Account, he refused to pay retirees. He stopped allocating funds to the PTAD in July 2012.”
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