Pensioners give Kogi govt 14 day ultimatum over board

Category: News Published on Thursday, 21 February 2013 05:00 Written by Usman A. Bello, Lokoja

Kogi State chapter of the National Union of Pensioners (NUP) has given a 14 day ultimatum to the state government to dismantle the present board and reconstitute another. Addressing journalists yesterday in Lokoja, chairman of the group, Alhaji Onu Abdullahi, said the ultimatum became necessary following the illegal constitution of board for Bureau of Local Government Pension.

He lamented that the history of pension management in the state is associated with fraud, adding that the union is saddened by the negative development.

According to him, the state’s Pensions Reform Laws, 2007, provides that anybody that will be appointed to the board must be a civil servants or a retired civil servants not below the level of permanent secretary.

“On December 27, we met with the governor and agreed to harmonize pensions in the state, offset backlog of gratuity and pension, review pension and also appoint either career civil servants or retired to the board. He did not fulfil these, but he went ahead and appointed politicians to the board. We protested against the appointment and the governor promised to look into it, only for him to inaugurate the same board,” he said.