By Our  Reporters

Retirees and civil servants in most South-East states have expressed deep worry over the insincerity of some governments in the zone to implement the Pension Reform Act of 2004 (as amended).

A News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) survey in the zone shows that the old problem associated with pensions and gratuities, which the Act intended to address, still persists in all but Anambra.

From Abia to Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo, complaints abound over delays and, in some cases, outright non-payment of pensions and gratuities to retired state civil servants.

In Abia, the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) said that present and past administrations in the state had yet to begin the implementation of the Act for reasons best known to them.

The state Chairman of the union, Mr Chukwuemeka Irondi, cited the huge arrears of pensions and gratuity owed to Abia retirees to buttress his point.
Irondi told NAN in Umuahia that Abia retirees were owed 42 months pension arrears as at August.

He lamented that in the meantime, government no longer paid their pensions “as and when due”.
According to him, not only did government stop paying pensions regularly, it slashed the amount by 50 per cent and later down to about 40 per cent.

Irondi said that although the reduction in the payment was unacceptable to the union, the worse scenario happened when the payment became more irregular, coming once in every three months.

He said that the sad development had brought untold economic hardship to the union members, adding that the last time the State Government paid gratuity to retirees was in 2002.

Irondi said: “It is very important for pensioners to go home with their money immediately they retire from service because it is their right.

“Someone who has worked for 35 years or attained the age of 60, as the case may be, has used the greater part of his energy, serving his state.

“Usually, many come down with one ailment or another that needs money.
“This is why we continue to appeal to the government to pay pensioners their entitlements, whole and entire, and regularly, too.

Contributing, the state Secretary of the Union, Mr Uma Kalu, decried the pathetic condition facing Abia pensioners.

Kalu said that a good number of them had passed on due to frustration, worsening living condition and the lack of money to take care of their health needs.

“So many of them do not even have any relations to take care of them and they die in their numbers from time to time,” Kalu said.

He urged the government to have a re-think and begin to pay pensions and gratuity regularly because “it is an agreement that is binding on it”.

In Imo, the state Coordinator, National Productivity Center, Mr Martin Okonkwo, decried the bottlenecks involved in the payment of gratuities and pensions.


Okonkwo said that there was obvious need to pay pension as and when due to enable the pensioner to attend to his personal and family needs.

“The old order seems to be better than this contributory scheme, which we thought would be better.

“The bureaucracy and bottlenecks in the system as well as pressure from family and health challenges after retirement have led to the untimely deaths of many retirees.

“As it stands, if you do not plan your future before retirement, it means that you will continue to fall sick or die, after one year or two of your retirement,” Okonkwo said.

Also contributing, Mrs Philomena Okocha, a retired primary school teacher, said she started benefitting from the contributory pension scheme two years after her retirement.

Okocha said: “Everyone has his or her plan even before retirement, but with the delay and rate at which prices of items in the market rise, it becomes more difficult to cope economically.

“Besides, on retirement, there is always the enthusiasm and energy to pursue another means of livelihood or execute a project, but the moment the money is delayed, it disrupts such agenda.

“Every civil servant has a retirement date and has been filling forms to indicate this.

“Pension managers should therefore always work ahead so that retirees can collect their gratuties within a maximum of two months,” she said.

Mr Nathaniel Ordu, who will retire from the Federal Civil Service this month, described the contributory pension system as “slow and poorly managed”.

“The pain is so much on the pensioners and the way the scheme is being run is not beneficial to retirees because payment is now split and staggered.

“The process of recapturing the retiree is another big hurdle.

“If possible, the process should be done at the establishment level so that one can just walk down to the pension managers to submit few documents and receive his entitlements rather than start recapturing afresh upon retirement,” Ordu said.

In Enugu, The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) in the state differed on the domestication of the Pension Reform Act of 2004 (as amended) in the state.

While the NLC urges the State Government to enroll its workers into the Contributory Pensions Scheme, NULGE expressed dissatisfaction with the new scheme.

The NLC Chairman, Mr Virginus Nwobodo, believed that the scheme would alleviate the sufferings of pensioners, if the Act was fully implemented.

Nwobodo said that it had become necessary to save pensioners from the agony of waiting for several years before accessing their pensions and gratuities.

He said: “The existing system is not helping us and that is why we have a backlog of pensions and gratuities.

“If we keep following the old system, we shall go nowhere.

“However, with the Act, the issue of delay in payment will soon become a thing of the past,” Nwobodo said.

However, the NULGE President, Mr Kenneth Ugwueze, said that they were not yet satisfied with the implementation of the new pension Act.

Ugwueze said that the union would not rush into the scheme but would still weigh the merits and demerits of the scheme.

According to him, the performance of the Pension Fund Administrators is still a major concern and our workers will not want to jump from frying pan to fire.

“Another issue is that we will not want a situation where the workers will contribute but the state government will fail to make its contribution

“We also have the issue of accrual pension

“If someone with 30 years work experience enrolls in the scheme now, with barely five years to retire, how do you handle such a case?

“Some of these contentious issues need to be addressed for us to be sure that if we join, our pensions will be protected,” Ugwueze said.

In Ebonyi, some federal and state civil servants charged the government to introduce a Pre-Retirement Pension Scheme.

They said the programme would enable government to handle technical aspects, such as identification, process and preparation of retirees’ pension, ahead of their retirement date.

A civil servant, Mr Sylvester Aniocha, complained that pensioners were not getting their pensions as and when due.
Aniocha said, “Even before retirement, all the processes and preparations are supposed to be worked out.”

Mrs Uchechi Ezeh called for the digitisation of the pension system to help facilitate the payment of pension and gratuities at the appropriate time.

“There is need for pensioners to get their money immediately they retire from service without delay,” Ezeh said.

Another civil servant, Mrs Priscilla Onuora, described the level of compliance with the Pension Reform Act at the state and federal levels as discouraging.

“People are opting out from the scheme because it takes pensioners 12 months with pain to access their benefits,” Onuora said.

Interestingly, Anambra’s experience looks unique, impressive, commendable and worthy of emulation by other states in the zone.

According to the state Chairman of NLC, Mrs Chinwe Orizu, the State Government domesticated the Pension Reform Act of 2004 (as amended) and has been implementing it.

Orizu said that delays in the payment of retirement benefits only applied to those with faulty documentations.
She said that the challenge usually involved discrepancies between the initial information supplied during employment documentation and pre-retirement information.

She said, “Anambra Government values their workers and does not waste time to pay their dues to show its appreciation to workers, who served meritoriously.

Mrs Charity Ononye, Director Pensions, Office of the Accountant General in the state, said the Act had been in operation since it was amended.

She said that the state had not defaulted in the payment of pensions and gratuities as and when due.
Ononye said that the state Joint Account Committee for the State and Local Governments usually prepared all the necessary documents “ready for payment of pensions to the workers as they meritoriously complete their service”.

She said: “Anambra does not delay in payment of the pension to its retiree once verification is properly done”

An Editor with the Anambra National Light Newspaper, Mrs Rose Oraenye, confirmed that the Pension Reform Act “is functional in their establishment”.
She said that those who retired from the organisation always received their pensions without any delay.

A retiree, Buife Ndigwe, said that she had not been denied her pension since retirement, adding, “In Anambra, pensions are paid before the 27th of every month.

“It is a thing of joy to be appreciated rightly after offering many years of service to one’s state.

“It will be absurd and a great error for any government to owe its pensioners,” she said.

NAN