Kano owes retirees N13b gratuities – NUP chairman

The Nigerian Union of Pensioners, Kano state chapter, has appealed to Governor Abdullahi Ganduje to pay the accumulated N13 billion gratuities being owed by the state government.
The NUP state chairman, Alhaji Salisu Ahmed-Gwale, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Kano on Tuesday.
He said the call became necessary in view of the fact that the life of most of the retired civil servants in the state are at stake.
Ahmed-Gwale said: “The state Pension Board had not received a single Kobo since June 2017 when we received N2.5 billion which had since been exhausted by paying the retirees.
“We have civil servants who retired from November 2015, in 2016 and 2017 but are yet to be paid their gratuities.
“This is most unfortunate considering the fact that the number of retirees is increasing every month.”
He said it was the collective responsibility of both those in active service and the retirees to ensure prompt payment of the entitlements as one day they (the civil servants) would join the league of pensioners.
He attributed the delay in payment of the workers’ entitlements to refusal of most of the MDAs to remit their contributions to the state pension board.
According to him, most of the retirees could not feed their families or pay school fees of their children let alone settle rent.
He, therefore, urged those in position of authority to fear Almighty Allah as each and everyone would have to account for their own deeds whether good or bad in the hereafter.
He said: “I want remind us that we are going to account before Almighty Allah all our deeds whether good or bad.”
Asked whether the union had made effort to present the problem before the state government, the NUP chairman said, “They always attribute the non-payment of the entitlements to economic recession which the country had since exited from”.