By BOLUWAJI OBAHOPO

Former workers of Olamaboro Local Government Education Authority in Kogi State, have dragged the state government to the Public Complaints Commission, PCC, over alleged refusal to obey a high court judgement ordering it to pay their five years salaries.

Wada.. governor of Kogi state

The workers who were controversially laid off in September 2010 by the committee set up by former commissioner for Education, Chief Sylvester Onoja, were said to have petitioned PCC without resorting to the State Universal Basic Education Board,SUBEB, which is the supervisory body.

According to the petition to, the affected workers who had been employees of the state government for over 20 years were indiscriminately sacked without any official letter.

The workers had approached the Okpo High Court and got judgement in their favour on June 7, 2011 directing the state government to pay the salaries of the affected workers as they remained genuine staff of the state government.

But the state government is yet to obey the order or appeal it.

Disobedience of the court order forced the same high court to issue an order of enforcement on the government on February 28, 2012, compelling the state government to obey its judgment. Still, the state government is yet to comply.

The workers said they resorted to petitioning the PCC over their plight as efforts seeking support of the state House of Assembly yielded no positive result. When the case came up for hearing last week, no government officials invited by PCC turned up except an official of SUBEB who admitted that the workers were sacked unjustifiably, but said only the state government could give directive for the payment of their five months unpaid salaries.

Some of the affected workers, who narrated their ordeals, lamented that not less than 15 of them had died due to lack of money to attend to their medical needs among others, while those still alive were experiencing untold hardship and suffering.

They appealed to the state governor to quickly come to their aid by obeying the court judgement and pay their salary arrears because they were dying gradually.

Unpaid benefits since 1995

Recall that the state government and the state chapter of Nigeria Union of Pensioners, NUP, have been at dagger drawn over unpaid pension and gratuity including arrears that date back to 1995. Though there has been remarkable improvement in terms of prompt monthly pensions’ payment .

Speaking with Pension & You, state chairman of NUP Chief Onuh Abdullahi, however, insisted that the state governor must be applauded for the prompt payment of monthly pensions to both the local government and state pensioners, saying.

“Since the coming of Governor Idris Wada, the monthly pension’s payment of pensioners has not stopped. I can tell you that there has not been a spill over to another month since March this year. We have to give him the kudos.”

Gratuity, Pension harmonization

“However, I must say what we gained in pension was robbed from us on gratuity. The state government has failed to meet up in the payment of the gratuity of the pensioners. I can say that only 1991, 1992 and 1994 pensioners have received their gratuity.”

Aside the issues of gratuity, Abdulalhi said the state was yet to honour the constitutional provision that pension harmonization should be done every five years, “the constitution of Nigeria and the state pension acts stipulated that pension harmonization should be done every five years and whenever there is any salary increment, the pensioners should also be considered.

“As I speak with you, the state has only conducted pension harmonization once in 2004. Which means two harmonizations before 2004 were jettisoned and there should have been three others after 2004 that have not been put into consideration.  Also, workers have enjoyed salary relativity, minimum wage, 12% increment, 25% increment, but the state has not thought it fit to extend such gesture to the pensioners.  Pensioners in the state have only been getting the old salary scale as pensions.”

Pension & You gathered that the state government’s refusal to conduct pension harmonization is due to suspected padding of the pensioners roll which made the governor give N5 million to the State Pension Board to carry out pensioners verification  in October last year. The outcome of the verification is yet to see the light of the day.

Abdullahi said he was not surprised because the union warned the governor not to give money to the board since it was the same management that had allegedly been inflating the figure of the pensioners.

He however said the union conducted a self verification exercise which revealed a large difference in the figures of pensioners from the one presented by the Board.

He said ”The verification exercise is just concluded and the report will be sent to the State government. There is a vast difference in the figure. At the end of the exercise, we have 7,864 State retirees and 6,800 of local government retires; a figure that is far from what is being circulated by the Pension Board.

PENSION DEBT

The chairman of the pension union said the State requires N8 billion to off load the gratuity and pensions arrears of the pensioners.

To him, the monthly contribution of N1 million from each of the 21 Local Government Areas and the N50 million from the state government; totaling N71 million’ to settle the backlog of both Local Governments and State retirees gratuities and pensions was a far cry to what was needed.

MEMBERS OF PENSION BOARD

The union was not comfortable with the composition of the members of the Pension’s Board, a situation that resulted into court case.

Though the union won the case at the High Court but the State government proceeded to the Appeal court and the case still pending.

According to Abdullahi, the decision to take the State to court over the membership of the Board was because the Board was over flooded with politicians; which he said was contrary to the state pension Acts.

He said “it is the same state government that makes the law that Pension Board must not be made up of “practicing” politicians; unfortunately, they are also the same arms flouting the law. Our decision to cry out is because we don’t want them to manipulate and over politicize pension affairs. We believe we’ll still get respite at the appeal court just like we did from the State High court.”

WAY FORWARD

The chairman however urged the state legislators and the media to impress it on the government to pay their pensions and gratuity on time, lamenting that several pensioners had died while waiting for their due.

NUP Chairman said “The pensioners must have visited the Board for close to 20 times before they could get some paltry sum of money. We have told them, if they cannot pay up to N100, 000 they should hold their money. Payment of N20, 000, N30, 000 is a sham.

“Government must stand up to their responsibility and make sure that the issue of pensioners is put at the first burner of the government. As a union, though we are retirees, we know what to do.

But we hope the government will not push us to such extend that we make use of such options. Don’t forget that the new acts from the House of Assembly also listed that governor and deputy governor including the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly should retain their salary; that makes them pensioners after their tenure.  They will also face the same fate that we are experiencing”.

He also said the union has informed the State Government to take loan to address the issue of gratuity, and place the burden of interest on the pensioners, “That will help the government as well as the pensioners.

If government took loan, and let’s say for someone whose gratuity is N3 million and the interest from the loan is 20%. Let government deduct the interest from the N3 million at source and give the person N2.4 million. The government would have offloaded the gratuity while the pensioners would also be happy to collect the N2.4 million rather than not getting a single kobo”.