BY GABRIEL ENOGHOLASE
BENIN— Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State has said that effective January 2014 pension fund would be funded in line with the Amended Pensions’ laws to give room for the 7.5 per cent contribution by employers and 7.5 per cent by employees to be managed by Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund, NSITF.

The governor, who disclosed this when he had audience with the executive council members of Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Edo State Council, said: “The several years of neglect in the payment of pension and gratuities by past governments of led to the huge debt burden, which is the reason for the pains inflicted on the pensioners in the state.

“That huge debt burden has remained the problem, such that even as we are spending more money every month, we have not been able to cure that problem because of the magnitude of the problem.”

He said that in 2000, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP government in the state dismissed many civil servants without payment them their gratuities and pensions, adding that all these put together had been responsible for the pains currently experienced by the pensioners.

While reacting to the pensioners’ alleged neglect by the present administration after they had supported him to win his second term, the governor admonished the senior citizens of the state to discountenance PDP’s alleged neglect of not being properly catered for after the said support.