Akwa Ibom Pensioners Demand Creation Of Pensions Board/Commission
Akwa Ibom pensioners have appealed strongly to the state governor, Pastor Umo Eno, to consider the establishment of a commission or board, as the case may be, to oversee the administration of pensions, gratuities and other entitlements to retired teachers and local government workers in the state and others in that category.
According to the senior citizens, “Such a board of commission will be a big relief from the burden of managing the affairs of the pensioners directly from his office, considering the enormous task associated with it and given the implementation of financial autonomy as approved by the Supreme Court for local government councils.
Akwa Ibom state secretary of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Obong Comas Essien JP, who made the call in a press briefing at the state secretariat, Uyo, over the weekend, recalled with dismay that it was the non-payment of salaries and gratuities and the inability of the third tier of government to manage funds that necessitated the obnoxious but necessary option of forming a joint account for the co-management of funds accruing to councils by the state for the proper management of pensions and salaries.
He noted that all the problems associated with the management of pensions arise from the fact that there’s no specific department or legal entity in the state that handles pensioners’ affairs.
He highlighted, “As a result, the governor lacks adequate information about the pension situation in the state. This lack of proper information accounts for the accumulated non-implementation of entitlements that has brought about constant unrest among the different sectors of pensioners.
”To solve these problems, the union appealed to Governor Umo Eno to consider the establishment of the Akwa Ibom State Pensions Board or Commission to oversee the administration of pensions, gratuities and other entitlements of retired workers in the state”.
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He, however, poured encomiums on the governor for caring for the elderly, particularly in the area of accumulated gratuities to civil pensioners up to 2018, local government workers pensions, about 2014 and retired primary school teachers, about 2012.
He also lauded the governor for the 20,000 and 15,000 added to all pensioners, noting that it has made life more meaningful to those he described as having a very low pension base of N1,000 up to N5,000, respectively.
Again, he appealed to the state governor to advise the State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, to include the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) in the committee for the payment of gratuities to retired primary school teachers and next-of-kin.
On the advantages, he said the board or commission, if established, shall collate the problems of pensioners, relate them to their departments, discuss them on board, find solutions and treat them, while the governor will only receive a single report, not multiple reports.
“Secondly, the pensioners will know where to seek redress and lodge their complaints, as there will be channels for effective communication and the old people will not demonstrate on the streets.
Thirdly, each department shall prepare its budget and take it to the board in session for discussion, and the board will finally gather information and prepare a common annual budget for all pensioners in the state.
He maintained that the board could be mandated to negotiate with local government chairmen the amount to be relinquished monthly for the payment of gratuities to these two sectors.
Finally, they lamented that the retired local government workers have not received the money that was released for gratuities since June 2024 by the state governor, calling on the governor to wade in and save their lives.
