The Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, has described the issues of pension and gratuity as “national problems”.
He said, over the weekend, in Makurdi, that his administration disbursed N700 million monthly, in the last six months, towards the settlement of pension matters in the state.
He said that the previous administration had left a backlog of arrears pensions, gratuities and salaries to the tune of N70 billion.
Ortom said, “pension issues and gratuity matters are national problem. Even at the federal level they still have their challenge. Others state also have their challenges. But I have succeeded in domesticating the PENCOM law. Already we have invested more than N1.5billion in the PENCOM account.
“It is there and once we are able to reach the N3billion threshold, we will be able to borrow money and clear the arrears; and subsequently all those who are retiring will not face the challenge of waiting for government to pay, they will go to PENCOM and as soon as you are retiring you will have your gratuity and pension.
“So these are the efforts we have put in place as a government. The officials of pensioners in Benue state commended me and appreciated what we have done. But we know we had backlog which should be cleared.
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“As I talk to you, every month N700million is provided for pensioners in the last six months based on the agreement that we reached with the pensioners’ union. N400million goes to the state level though it is not enough to cover the entire pensioners but at least it is said that half a loaf is better than non. And at the Local Government level we release N300million making N700million.
“So I am really taken aback when I heard what happened after we explained and we agreed that this is what we should be doing monthly. And mind you, at the local government level, the pensioners are part of the local government allocation account meeting.
“Though keeping the agreement is at the detriment of other matters but we prioritized their issue because other areas like development of infrastructure and even overhead of my office and other offices are suffering but we had to do it because truly these are our fathers and mothers.
“Some of them are on drugs, some are sick, some are in pains but we have put an arrangement in place to ensure that everybody is earning something contrary to what obtained in the past.
“So I’m really taken aback by their protest but that notwithstanding these are elder statesmen and I cannot join issues with them.”
