Ogun State Government has incurred N32.8 billion gratuities and death benefits between August 2011 and June, 2019 under the Transitional Pension Scheme.
The Permanent Secretary, Bureau of Local Government Pensions, Mrs. Irene Kokumo, disclosed this while hosting members of the state House of Assembly’s Committee on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs.
A statement issued on Monday by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Kunle Somorin quoted Kokumo to have hinted that the debt was piled up under the previous administration, noting that Governor Dapo Abiodun has vowed to offset the outstanding gratuities.
According to the statement, the government pays an average of N791million pensions to retired Local Government Council workers and the State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, retirees monthly.
Apart from the N791 million being paid monthly as pensions, Permanent Secretary said the Bureau has also paid N4.6 billion as monthly pensions between January and June, 2019.
Speaking on the budget assessment of the bureau, Kokumo disclosed that “the scheme currently caters for 11,616 retirees in the pre-1991 category.”
Quoting Kokumo further, the statement said records from the Bureau of Local Government Pensions showed that the present administration “has been facilitating prompt release of retirement savings account balance to retirees who had disengaged from the Contributory Pension Scheme with a view to ensuring that senior citizens enjoy better life after meritorious years of service to the councils.”
“She added that primary responsibility of the Bureau was that of the pre-1991 retirees, consisting of local government and SUBEB personnel, as well as officials still in active service.
“The permanent secretary listed other achievements of her Bureau to include computation and compilation of outstanding gratuities and death pensions till date, maintenance of records of existing pensioners for easy access to retrieve information from computerised filing system, facilitation of remittances of contributory pension deductions as and when released, among others”, the statement said.
