Senate probes N2trn pension funds

[DT]

The Senate says it will not relent in its ongoing investigation into the payment of over N2 trillion pension funds by the Federal Government to unspecified number of retirees under the new pension scheme.  The Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service is conducting a public hearing on the administration of pension funds across the six geo-political zones of the country.

The chairman of the committee, Senator Aloysius Akpan Etok (PDP, Akwa Ibom) told journalists yesterday that his committee was investigating the N2 trillion pension funds as against N700 billion erroneously reported by some national dailies.

Etok said it would be too early to allege fraud in the payment of the funds, but said that every month, the Federal Government paid N3 billion to pensioners.

He regretted that in spite of the government's claim to have so far paid over N2 trillion to pensioners under the new scheme, a large number of them had not been paid.

Etok said his committee had received a barrage of petitions from pensioners over the delay in the payment of their entitlements.

According to him, states such as Kebbi, Enugu, Rivers, among others, whose retirees are yet to join the new contributory pension scheme may have to wait for long for the payment.

He, therefore, urged those states to key into the scheme in the interest of their pensioners.

"This committee has also noted with deep concern the complaints and appeals of many Nigerians who served during the colonial days as civil servants. They had served for years, and that should have qualified them for pensions and gratuities, but they had their careers terminated as a result of the Civil War. These pre-civil war civil servants are pleading that those years in which they meritoriously served the nation before the civil war should not be in vain," Etok added.

DailyTrust