By Gabriel Enogholase

BENIN—PIQUED by what they described as glaring injustice against them  by pension administrators, retirees of the Nigeria Prison Service, under the aegis of Retired Prison Officers Association, have called on the Federal Government to remove paramilitary retirees from the National Pension Commission, PENCOM scheme as practised all over the world.

They however, insisted that in the alternative, the government should return those who had served 20 years and above before  June 1, 2004 to the old pension scheme to ensure equity and balanced judgment.

The retirees, in an SOS  to President Muhammadu Buhari  by the chairman of the association, Mr A. O. Debuwa,  said: “It is important and appropriate to stress that we are not against the 2004/2014 Contributory Pension Act, but against the unwise and wrongly inclusion/implementation.

President Muhammadu Buharia.

“Our grudge is hinged on the fact that paramilitary and workers employed before or who had served 21 years and above as at June 1, 2004 were not exempted from the scheme as was the case in Chile from where the scheme was copied from.

“Consequently,  by our erroneous inclusion into PENCOM, we have little to contribute to add to our pension, reason being that we had already exhausted the greater part of our service years in the old scheme where we ought to belong.”

“The idea of exempting only those who have two years and less from PENCOM  is utterly reprehensible and repressive because it is devoid of human face and in negation of principles of equity and fairness.

“The scheme was originally designed to manage contributions of employees and not their gratuities. As a result, we lost big chunk of our gratuities by merging it with the paltry contributions made within the remaining part of our service.

“Other glaring injustice worthy of note is the biased removal of the military and some paramilitaries from PENCOM leaving some. Military and paramilitaries are exempted from the scheme world over except in Nigeria.”

The association said that although the House of Representatives Pension Committee conducted a public hearing on the issue of removal on September 28, 2017, it lamented that till now, no report was issued.

They told President Buhari that most retirees under PENCOM receive less than 25 percent of their previous salaries contrary to PENCOM Act 2004.