Governor of Imo State, Hope Uzodimma, has lamented that some pensioners in the state were earning a whopping N330 million yearly as pension.
He vowed to publish the names of those involved soon.
The governor also said that he had set in motion the process of integrating Imo pensioners into the National Contributory Pensions Scheme as a way of enhancing good governance.
Uzodimma, who spoke in a meeting with the leadership of Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP) in Owerri, said that out of 13,800 primary school teachers, only 9,000 were found to be real, as over 4,800 were ghost workers.
He said: “I’ll soon publish names of those who earn above N330m per annum as pension for Imo people to know.
“Government will no more make use of micro finance banks for payments of salaries and pensions because they are no clearing house for BVN holders so that pensioners can be paid directly.”
He expressed delight that everything concerning pensions and salaries of Imo workers have been automated to make day-to-day running of government easier.
The governor added that nobody would be able to defraud the government any longer after the biometric verification.
He reiterated his earlier stand that pensions and salaries were not negotiable, insisting that what brought the delay in payment was the discovery of overwhelming fraud, discrepancies and irregularities resulting from salary padding, over bloated and double pensions among other sharp practices.
He said some pensioners were receiving monies above their retirement salaries while others get outrageous monies that are not accounted for.
Uzodimma said that only primary and secondary school teachers, who have been verified and confirmed to be employees of government, will receive their salaries.
The governor advised those playing politics with pensions and salaries to desist from doing so as his sole objective remained to dismantle the cabal that milk the state dry through the pensions and salaries.
“Government has decided to automate all payments to enable it migrate to the contributory pension’s scheme,” he stressed.
Chairman of Nigeria Labour Congress in the state, Comrade Austin Chilakpu, lauded the efforts so far made by the governor towards payment of salaries and pensions in the State.
He, however, appealed to the governor to look into the staggering nature of pensions and illegal deductions and requested that pensioners pay be made a priority.
Also speaking, the Chairman of Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Imo State, Dr. Josiah B Ugochukwu, requested the governor to pay the pensioners harmoniously so that the leaders will be sure of those who received their pensions and others that were genuinely omitted for proper pension administration.
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