The elderly pensioners on Wednesday, June 15, took to the streets of the
state capital to demonstrate over non payment of their entitlements by
the government. Below is the statement issued by Sam Onwuemeodo, Chief
Press Secretary to the Governor:
"The State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha has sincerely commended the
pensioners in the state for the peaceful manner with which they had
conducted their protest on Thursday, June 16, 2016 over the non-payment
of their pensions for certain months.
The governor contends that the Pensioners were right to have gone on
protest over their pensions, and had only exercised their guaranteed
right of protest over an issue affecting them.
It was as a result of the appreciation of the reason for the protest
that made the governor to direct the security agencies in the state and
all the government officials to be on their toes for the period the
protest had lasted to ensure that no pensioner involved in the exercise
was insulted or touched. And the pensioners had had undisrupted outing,
and even chased away the Commissioner for Internally Generated Revenue
(IGR) who was sent to talk with them on what could be made available for
them as entertainment, while discussion with their leaders would
follow. However, the only area the governor felt and still feel worried
with the pensioners was their failure or inability to find out the
reason for the delay in the payment of their pensions since such
situation had not arisen before now.
The pensioners in the state do not need to be told that the governor
loves them greatly and would have also loved to pay them all the arrears
outrightly given the option since he had paid them religiously since
2011, until now. And the governor had expected the pensioners to ask
question and find out the reason for the delay this time.
Since 2011, and before the current economic challenges across the
nation, the government had paid the pensioners in the state without
taking cognizance of certain lapses in the administration of the pension
payments and the number of genuine pensioners in the state. But the
economic situation in the country at the moment occasioned by the
mismanagement of the country’s resources over the years, which has also
affected negatively the financies of the states has called for stringent
measures in the payment of salaries and pensions. It was this
development that had compelled the government to find out why between
2011 and now, the number of pensioners in the state has snowballed by
500 percent, and the amount involved gone from hundreds of millions of
naira to billions of naira.
That was one of the reasons the government embarked on verification. And
preliminary findings have shown that a cartel had used the opportunity
offered to them by the change of government in 2011 to inflate
unpatriotically the number of pensioners in the state to a level that is
unbelievable. And that is what the government has been assiduously
working to rectify. And the truth remains that once the government
succeeds in separating the fake pensioners from the genuine ones, the
genuine ones would be paid their pensions. And this action will be taken
in a matter of weeks.
The governor therefore regrets the delay and at the same time appeals to
the pensioners in the state for their understanding, bearing in mind
that he meant well for them since 2011 when he became governor. It is
equally important to let the pensioners know that those urging them to
take one action or the other do not love them more than governor
Okorocha. For instance, the owner of the particular Radio station in the
state that had tried to make out something sinister from the
pensioners’ protest was reported to have got more than N750 million from
the 4 billion dollars’ arms purchase scandal, and the pensioners should
ask those in the radio station why they didn’t bring up the N750
million issue for discussion.
Once more, the governor appeals to the pensioners in the state for understanding.
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