The National Public Service Negotiating Council on Sunday said the Delta State Government has an outstanding N5.514,430,569.95 indebtedness to the Contributory Pension Scheme.
This is despite the fact that the state has contributed over N20 billion to the scheme since it was established, a competent government source told The Eagle Online.
The NPSNC said it was worried because the pension money of the 410 workers who retired last year have not been paid, even as about 1,462 others have been estimated for retirement by December this year.
The state Chairman of the council, Comrade Goodluck Ofobruku, said the council “is no longer comfortable with the state’s fragrant disregard of workers’ welfare.”
At the news conference with his Secretary, Comrade Lucky O.A. Edewor, Ofobruku sought the immediate release and payment of retirement benefits of retirees in the state from 2012 to date.
He wondered why Governor Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan kept to himself without justifiable reasons the payment of outstanding government 10 per cent contribution to workers Retirement Saving Account.
In a two-page communiqué dated September 19, 2013, the council said it observed with dismay that the recent National Minimum Wage as adopted by the oil rich state was not being fully implemented.
The communique said: “The Contributory Pension Scheme is a monumental failure in Delta State as the state government has persistently refused to pay its counterpart contributions to workers as well as retirement benefits to retirees from 2012 to date as stipulated by law thereby causing untold hardship to the generality of the beneficiaries in the state.”
The communiqué decried what it called the “hide and seek” strategy Governor Uduaghan and other top government officials have adopted in the last five years by deliberately refusing to meet with the leadership of the council.
While the communiqué lauded the governor for promptly paying workers’ salaries and for the infrastructural turn-around across the state, it further wondered why the government of the state was promoting unhealthy government cum labour relations that could cause industrial unrest.
Meanwhile, The Eagle Online gathered that the pension and gratuity debt stock for quarter one – end of March 2013 – for the state stands at N2,647,318,742.63, even as the state’s gratuity and accrued rights for the aforementioned months stand at N6,867,111,827.32.
As at the end of June, 2013, the forecast projection for the second quarter, pension backlog of the government of the state’s 10 per cent monthly contribution to workers’ RSAs between April and June stood at N533,077,314.52, just as its gratuity cum accrued rights in the period under review was N3,569,378,644.60.
The state’s cumulative forecast/projection backlog up to second quarter, end of June 2013, stands at N3,180,396,057.15, even as gratuity and accrued rights hit N10,436,490,471.90.
Between May 2012 to April 2013, when the state did not remit its 10 per cent monthly contributions to the pension scheme from its Ministries, Departments and Agencies and its higher institutions of learning, its indebtedness was put at N2,647,318,742.63, just as its retirees outstanding was N2,867,111,827.32.
“Put together”, The Eagle Online source revealed, “the state is indebted to the Contributory Pension Scheme as at April this year to a tune of N5,514,430,569.95.
“I stand to be corrected because the facts and figures are before us here.”
The council therefore called on the government to make plans towards releasing funds to meet its part of the CPS and its other indebtedness, including the study-leave bonus being owed workers across the state before their appointments were “automatically terminated by the government” to prevent an impending unrest by the workers.
However, a competent government source told The Eagle Online that the state government has paid over N20 billion to the CPS, adding that the state was among the few that has been meeting its obligations to workers since the introduction of the new minimum wage.
The source, who said that the government would react officially to the position of the workers, told The Eagle Online: “Within what we have available, we have been able to pay over N20 billion to the CPS.
“There are only few states that have surpassed us and we can boldly beat our chest that we have done creditably well by meeting the demands of our workers and at the same time improving infrastructures all over the state.
“It is by careful planning that we are able to combine paying salaries and other emoluments to workers and building infrastructures.
“The way it is, if the needs of the workers are met all at once, then the state will grind to a halt.
“Yet, we don’t want to retire because we cannot afford to pay.
“But like I said, we will make our official position known soon.”
Follow The Eagle Online Channel on WhatsApp
