12th April, 2012
The Lagos State Government says the Federal Government is yet to reimburse the N11.2 billion pension it owes pensioners in Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.
Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions, Mrs Florence Oguntuase disclosed this on Thursday at a ministerial news conference at Alausa in Ikeja, saying that since 2005, the amount the Federal Government owed Lagos State had accumulated to N1.1 billion for State pensioners and N10.1 billion for Local Government pensioners.
“The Civil Service Pensions Office is responsible for processing and forwarding to the Federal Government the applications of pensioners who are entitled to be paid a part of their pension benefits by the Federal Government; referred to as the Federal Government share.
“The non-payment by the Federal Government over the years has caused anxiety for such pensioners. To date, a total amount of N1, 107,267,537.95 and N10.1 billion was verified and approved as reimbursement to the state and local governments respectively.
“We are hopeful that the outcome of the pension’s investigation by the Senate Committee on Establishments and Pensions would be favourable to the state and local governments,” she said.
Oguntuase aldo disclosed that the Civil Service Pensions Office, in the last one year processed 232 files for terminal benefits of prospective pensioners, saying that N119.7 million was paid as gratuity to 145 pensioners, while N1.7 billion was paid as pensions to 9,000 pensioners.
The commissioner further disclosed that since inception, the state government had remitted N29.4 billion to the various Pension Fund Administrations, PFAs as staff contributory pension scheme.
On staff training, Oguntuase stated that the government spent N400 million to train 6,102 staff in the last one year.
—Kazeem Ugbodaga