• We are not owing workers, says Umahi
Retirees in Imo have appealed to the state government to pay their over 40 months accumulated pensions, regretting that their members were dying due to hunger and inability to access medicare.
Speaking yesterday in an audience participatory programme, ‘Peoples Assembly’ on Hot FM, in Owerri, a retired Permanent Secretary, Comrade Fabian Nwagba, said about 80 per cent of retirees in the state were yet to be paid, while all retired judges were allegedly not paid.
He regretted that out of 30 months he was owed, he only accessed three months, while his wife was owed 44 months.
Nwagba disclosed that since he retired 16 years ago, he had not suffered in receiving his pensions the way he has in the present dispensation in the state, calling for accommodation of pensions payment in the exclusive list.
Another retiree, Adeolu Adeola, urged the Federal Government to wake up to its duties of handling pensions issues in the country, to avoid disintegration.He urged the members of the Imo State House of Assembly to handle the pensions matter before it results to another thing.
The Secretary to the Government of Imo State (SGI), George Eche, in a statement said the state government was working to forestall fraud in pensions administration.
Meanwhile, Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State yesterday debunked a publication that the state is among those owing their workers’ salaries, pensions and gratuities, describing the report as baseless and falsehood.
Umahi in a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Emmanuel Uzor, described the report as not only embarrassing but mischievous.The statement said since the inception of Umahi’s administration, he has never failed to pay workers’ salaries on or before 25th of every month and teachers’ on the 15th of every month.
Uzor said a state that just released workers’ promotion and leave allowances in addition to 13th month salaries could not have been said to owe salaries, and called on the general public to disregard the publication.
The state has also released over N17 million for procurement of drugs and commencement of quality medical services in 171 health Centres in the state.
The Commissioner for Health in the State, Dr. Daniel Umezurike disclosed this yesterday at a forum for sustainable logistics and commodity management system organized by Health stakeholders in Abakaliki.
In another development, the Nigeria Union of Teachers(NUT), Kebbi State, yesterday staged a peaceful protest to the Kebbi State House of Assembly against transferring of primary school teachers salary and their affairs to the local government councils in the ongoing Constitution amendment across Nigeria.
The aggrieved teachers, led by their Chairman, Comrade Isa Umar, told the lawmakers that the union is not against local government autonomy but the primary school teachers affairs should not be under the council.The Speaker said the lawmakers would ensure that their actions during deliberations on the amendment process do not hurt primary school teachers.
