By Ike Uchechukwu

YAKUUR- A  pensioner, who came for a verification exercise by the Cross River State Government at Yakuur Local Government Area secretariat, Yakuur, in the state, collapsed at the venue out of exhaustion , and was rushed back home, while several retirees and pensioners alleged ill-treatment by officials.

Exhausted retiree on the floor sleeping

They also faulted the method employed by the Verification team from    the Auditor General’s office in collaboration with the Pensions Board in the local government, saying it was too rigorous for them at their age, especially the ailing ones and accused a cabal of swindling them.

Some of the pensioners, who spoke to our reporter, pointed out that they have not received pensions for a period of three to seven months, alleging that the team skipped payment for up to three months.

One of the retirees noted:” I am a 76- year- old man and there are so many old people, some are bed-ridden, others on wheel chairs and they have been waiting here for hours, Mr. Journalist, just look around you, the sight is nothing to write home about. They should have distributed the verification forms like they used to before since we still have to go through biometric verification.

Many dead waiting for pension

“Many of us have not been paid from January till March, I have children but they are not in Cross River State,    at least they send me lifeline, but there are so many of us who depend solely on this pension for survival. Do you know so many have died waiting, while some people sit in their offices enjoying this money?  The way they are treating us here is evidence that they really do not care about us.” he lamented.

He added: “I want the governor to take a cursory look at the Pension Board and other related agencies, so many of us have died waiting while few persons are enjoying our retirement benefits because I do not seem to understand the reason why some months are skipped. Do you know that there are some teachers, who have not received their money since 2012? We are appealing to Prof Ben Ayade to unmask the cabal, we are dying.”

Another retiree, who also declined having his name in print, said: “They should have just distributed forms to us and when we come for the bio-metric verification, they can confirm or authenticate our information as filled on the form. A man fainted and was taken back home, many of us are old, sick and weak, I am almost 80 years and they expect me to stay here for hours?

Sixty-four- year-old Ikpi Bernard Usang, a retired teacher, said: “We commend the effort of the government in trying to sanitize the system but the logistics and personnel they have provided cannot efficiently handle this crowd and this will lead to so many of us going to Calabar, which is a three to four hours journey because of bad road. “We appeal that the next time they are coming, they should give us information on the perquisite for the exercise.”

Too many ghost pensioners- Bassey

Leader of the verification team, Mr. Alphonsius Bassey, told Niger Delta Voice that they would complete the exercise in two days, as they work until 6.00pm daily, adding: “ They are not orderly, and many of them, who came here are not local government retirees. We have been making announcements so that those who don’t have any business here can leave.

“The essence of this exercise is to clean the system of ghost retirees, there are many of them who  died many years ago, yet their pension is still running, we are trying to be more prudent with funds. This is the reason we are taking all the pain to do a thorough job here, and we have two days for this.”

Secretary to the Local Government Pensioners in Cross River, Peter Ozang, however, disclosed that officials would screen about 5000 retirees and would visit the homes of the incapacitated ones to carry out the exercise.

A flustered retiree, nevertheless, asked: “How can that be possible, is it not a way of removing those people from the master list and voucher. I can count more than five of my friends who died without getting their benefits for more than eight months. When you bring up these issues, they use bureaucracy as justification while people are dying.”