Pensioners urge Fed Govt to pay outstanding benefits

Pensioners under the umbrella of the Association of Retired Senior Public Officers of Nigeria (ARFESPON) have appealed to the Federal Government to pay them all outstanding pension benefits.
They are also asking the government to stop the disparity in payment of pension benefits between its members and their serving counterparts.
ARFESPON is made up of retired management level officers from salary grade level 14 to Permanent Secretaries, Comptrollers-General of Customs, Immigration and Prisons and career Ambassadors.
The President of the Lagos State chapter of the association, Olufemi Odewabi, while speaking with reporters in Lagos said government currently owes its members 30-month pension benefits.
According to him, the government is yet to implement the 53.4 per cent pension increase following salary increase it effected for federal public workers in 2010, which by stipulations of the law of the federation should supply to retirement benefits of pensioners.
He said: “The Federal Government is yet to listen to yearnings of retired senior public officers. We have been pleading with government to totally effect the 2010 increase in our pension benefits and to end the era of disparity in the payment of retirement benefits to pensioners.
“The government had during the regime of Goodluck Jonathan effected 53.4 per cent increase in the salaries of public office workers and failed to do same for pensioners. Section 173, sub-section 3 of the Constitution of Nigeria states that pension shall be reviewed every five years or together with any federal civil service salary review, whichever is earlier.”
“When we reacted to government’s non-compliance with the above section of the law regarding the increase it made in the salaries of its workers in 2010, the government set up a committee to review our case. But the committee went contrary to the position of the Constitution on the issue and recommended 33 per cent increase for the pensioners against 53.4 per cent effected on federal workers’ salaries.”
This, according to Odewabi, left the pensioners with a short change of 20.4 percent. He lamented that rather than pay the 33 per cent increase recommended by the committee in full, government has been paying in installments. He appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to clear the 30 months arrears and pay up the sum total of the 20.4 per cent deducted by the committee.
He noted that his members were right in their demand for payment of the 20.4 percent deductions because all the reasons given by the committee for the deductions were wrong, adding that the tax percentage deducted by the committee was against Section 173, sub-section 4 of the Constitution of Nigeria, which states that pensioners in respect of service in the public service of the federation shall not be taxed.
He said the per cent deducted for contributory pension scheme was wrong because all his members are under the Defined Benefit  old scheme and have nothing to do with Contributory Scheme.
“The Federal Housing Scheme, for which the committee deducted 2.5 per cent should not be because his members are no longer under the housing scheme. The deductions are illegal and I urge President Buhari to listen to our cries and pay both the outstanding 30 months and the 20.4 per cent deductions. We also want the President to intervene in the harmonisation of disparity existing in payments between serving and retired public officers.”