Pension payment: Osun retired civil servants appeal to Aregbesola
RETIRED public servants in Osun State, under the aegis of ‘Forum of 2012 Retired Osun State Public and Civil Servants’, have implored the state government to quicken their placement and payment of pension arrears, coupled with gratuity to save them from untold hardship.
In a letter addressed to Governor Rauf Aregbesola, dated April 24 and signed by Mr Tunde Ogunniyi and Mr Ayoade Afolabi, chairman and secretary, respectively, the retired workers said the appeal became necessary, since they have no other means of livelihood than their monthly pension.
The forum claimed that its members have started experiencing some agonies and challenges, such as hunger, inability to pay their hospital bills, failure to settle the admission fees of their children in tertiary institutions and other financial obligations due to lack of funds.
But in a swift reaction, the state Commissioner for Finance and Economic Planning, Dr Wale Bolorunduro, urged the retired public servants to fast-track the processes for collection of their authority papers, adding that those that have completed and collected their authority papers had, since January, been pension-rolled.
He said that the state governor was magnanimous on their welfare of retired public servants by increasing the monthly pension fund from N200 million to N350 million, to be able to accommodate the surge of the retired civil servants, who chose to go with the old pension act.
Bolorunduro observed that the state government was not waisting time in ensuring auto pension-rolling the retired civil servants, as against the old manual system.
According to him: “The affected retired civil servants, I believe, are part of the system. They are aware that they will not be pension-rolled immediately they leave the service. They need to process their authority papers, pass through the office of state Head of Service for necessary action for pension-rolling; all these process must be done.”
“Some of them, who have collected their authority papers have been pension-rolled and the governor, Mr Aregbesola, has graciously jerked up the pension fund payment from N200 million he met it, to N300 million and now N350 million to be able to accommodate new pensioners.
The forum noted that “as trained bureaucrats, who have no other means of livelihood than our monthly salaries when we were in active service and now, our monthly pension, not receiving a penny for a minimum of three months is killing and frustrating.”
Culled from Tribune
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