Clearing The Pension Mess Okorocha Left Behind: Imo Gov Ihedioha Creates Verified Database, Commences Payment
The Oasis Reporters
October 18, 2019
Pensioners of Imo State origin in Nigeria’s South East began to heave a sigh of relief after listening to a Live State Broadcast made by their youthful governor, Emeka Ihedioha who assumed office, May 29, 2019 after what was seen as the unfortunate 8 year reign of the former All Progressive Party, APC governor Rochas Okorocha. Pensioners had a raw deal but with Ihedioha’s ascendancy, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel.
Here are the highlights of Governor Emeka Ihedioha’s Live Radio and TV broadcast on 17th October, 2019 which commenced at 8.00 am :
1. That his government has successfully finished the biometric data verification of Imo State pensioners in both the state and Local government level.
2. That Imo pensioners and pension administration system in the state will now be seamless, automated and pensioners will at the comfort of their homes receive their due entitlements.
3. That out of 48, 481 available records, comprising 28,658 from the office of the head of service and 19,823 from the Local government Area pension board, a total number of after 24 431 pensioners were verified as authentic database of Imo pensioners.
4. That a total amount of N1, 499,157,895 (N1.5 billion) being accrual for state pensioners presented to the state government as at May 29th, 2019, has been trimmed down to NI, 218, 175, 387 (N1.2 billion).
5. This entails a savings of N280,982,508 million or 18. 7% per month, consequently a total 5,728 or 30.34% of ghost pensioners in all were filtered out.
6. That at the Local Government Level, at the same period (May 29th, 2019) , the amount of N683,817,451 million representing the accrual of 14,667 for LGA pensioners was outstanding.
7. After the exercise the bill came down to N536,677,591 million for an adjusted figure of 11,846 beneficiary, this represented a monthly savings of N147,139,860m or 21.1%. Total number of ghost pensioners for LGA stood at 2, 821 or 19.2% of the initial figure.
8. That total savings for both state and LGA pensioners stood at N428,122,368 million , this represents the amount of state resources that would have gone into the drains without the necessary due diligence.
9. That payment of Imo State pensioners commenced Thursday 17th October, 2019.
10. That 256 Imo Youths drawn from the 27 LGAs and another 800 adhoc staff Imo Youths drawn from the 27 LGA’s were trained and deployed for the pension verification processes and has been enrolled into Imo State Civil Service.
