Ondo pays N6b to pensioners

ABOUT N6 billion has been disbursed by the Ondo State government to service the pension and gratuities scheme for retired local council workers, including primary school teachers, since the inception of the Dr. Olusegun Mimiko administration in 2009.

Chairman, Ondo State Local Government Service Commission, Sadiq Obanoyen, who disclosed this to The Guardian at the weekend, said the amount had completely taken care of all the benefits of the retirees and that “nobody is being owed by the state as at last month.”

Giving a breakdown of the disbursements, Obanoyen, who also heads the Local Government Pension Fund, said a lump sum of N1.4 billion was paid in October 2009, seven months after the emergence of the Mimiko administration, to take care of five-year outstanding arrears for the retirees.

He said the release of the fund was to bring sanity to the state pension fund management under which many senior citizens were wallowing in abject poverty with many dying while waiting endlessly for their benefits to come.

According to the council administrator, “with the payment of the N1.4 billion, the governor directed that the state should not allow the pension burden to get too heavy before payment and that machineries should be put in place to ensure payment as at when due.

“With this new arrangement, instead of paying the retirees peanuts as was the case before us, allowing the fund to accumulate to an unbearable level, we started paying them as soon as they retired. And all the gratuities are being paid at once. It is good for us because we avoid unnecessary accumulation, good for the retiree who get his money once and can decide what to do with it, and good for our economy, which is absorbing the releases.”

Obanoyen stated that three months after the first disbursement, N452 million was released the following December to take care of the leftovers and the new set while between January and December, 2010, a total of N2.4 billion was distributed to beneficiaries as pension and gratuities.

He also disclosed that in 2011, the sum of N3.1 billion was released to the council pensioners and that so far, N306 million has been released in 2012.