Senate seeks bailout funds for pensioners’ N174bn arrears

By Taiye Odewale
Abuja

The Senate yesterday urged President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in the current financial challenges being faced by pensioners in the country by providing a bailout fund to redeem federal government’s pension indebtedness amounting to about N174 billion.
Senate’s resolution in this regard, followed a motion moved to that effect by Senator Emmanuel Paulker (PDP Bayelsa Central).

Paulker, in the motion titled: “The untold hardship of pensioners occasioned by federal government’s failure to contribute its statutory share of 5 per cent to the Pension Redemption Fund,” noted with serious concern the untold hardship retired senior citizens of the country had been facing since 2015 as a result of non-payment of their pension arrears.
He said pensioners under Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) who retired since 2015 had not been paid their pensions due to the failure of the federal government to contribute its statutory share of five per cent to the Pension Redemption Fund in line with the Pension Reform Act, 2004, amounting to a total sum of N285, 946, 669, 881.

“The delay in payment of pension arrears has put pensioners across the country in a very precarious situations where they wallow in penury, sickness, hopelessness and regret for serving their fatherland diligently only to be abandoned by the government upon retirement,” he said.
In his comments, the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, assured that the National Assembly would use its legislative powers to intervene “so as to alleviate the sufferings of the senior citizens.”

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