Nasarawa State government has approved N1billion for payment of gratuities to over 1,000 retirees in the state.
Governor Abdullahi Sule announced this during an unscheduled visit to the State Bureau for Pension Administrations.
He visited the BPA during the screening exercise of over 700 Local Government and 300 retired pensioners of the state government.
According to Governor Sule, the one billion naira would be used to clear the backlog of gratuities owed both the State and Local Government retirees from 1999 to 2010.
The governor lamented that his administration inherited a backlog of gratuity from the creation of the State in 1996 till date.
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.”
