BY OKEY NDIRIBE

NIgeria Union of Pensioners, NUP, has cried out over undue delay in the payment of members’s monthly pensions.

Addressing journalists over the situation in Abuja recently, the union’s President Alhaji Ali Abacha called on the Federal Government to investigate the situation adding that while some banks (names withheld) are being used to warehouse the pensioners funds, many members of the union are left to wallow in abject poverty and some have died out of frustration.

According to the union: “. Sadly, while monies are idly kept in these banks for over a year, the rightful owners are wallowing in abject poverty; some have died out of frustration without enjoying the fruits of their labour.”

The union commended the sincere intention and commitment of the Goodluck Jonathan administration towards assuaging the suffering of   pensioners by prompt release of subventions for pension payments.

“We are constrained to bring to  President Jonathan’s  notice that such funds are not getting to their target owner (pensioners);  rather  they are stashed away in some banks yielding unaccountable interest for a powerful  syndicate sabotaging your efforts”  the union stated.

The NUP  recalled that after the Office of Directorate of Pension formerly affiliated to  the Office of the Head of Service was disbanded in 2009 due to corruption, a task force which was known as Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT) was set up to sanitise the system and ensure that pensioners were always paid promptly.

The union said the task force which was headed by Abdulrasheed  Maina did a good job for some years, but now bogged down by the administrative bottlenecks and bureaucracy of the federal civil service.

NUP lamented that this had resulted in a reversal to the  past scenario where entitlements of pensioners were delayed for long periods.