The governor bemoaned the fact that from the time the State was established in 1996 till the present, his administration had inherited a backlog of gratuities.
The Nasarawa State administration has authorised the distribution of N1 billion in gratuities to more than 1,000 state pensioners.
This was disclosed by Governor Abdullahi Sule when on an impromptu visit to the State Bureau for Pension Administrations.
During the screening process for over 700 local government and 300 retired state government pensioners, he paid a visit to the BPA.
Governor Sule stated that the one billion naira would be utilised to pay the back gratuity arrears owed to retirees of the State and Local Governments for the years 1999 through 2010.
The governor bemoaned the fact that from the time the State was established in 1996 till the present, his administration had inherited a backlog of gratuities.
He informed that he was at the screening venue to monitor the exercise, which he said, was meant to reduce the hardship of the retirees by offsetting their entitlements.
“The Present administration under my watch has been working relentlessly to ensure that both the Local and State pensioners are paid one hundred per cent of the pension, with the pensioners already receiving their February pension”, Sule stated
Speaking, Director General of the State Pension Bureau, Suleiman Nagogo, explained why retirees were being paid only N100, 000 monthly in the past as gratuity.
“Please recall that payment of this gratuity is being done every quarter which means that we gather the amount we have to receive in three months and announce to the people to come and collect their gratuity.
“We don’t sit as a Bureau for Pension Administration, BPA, and say we are paying N100,000 . There is a committee called the Gratuity Disbursement Committee which is headed by the Deputy Governor of the State. They sit and look at the entire amount that has accrued for payment of gratuity and look at the recommendations that came from the BPA and how many people they can take at that quarter.”
The DG who dismissed, claims that files belonging to some retirees were missing, added “Whoever said his file is missing, I think he is only claiming so. I have never received complaints of anybody’s file not being traced in this office.”