Abia grapples with N21bn pension arrears, says Commissioner

The Commissioner for Finance in Abia, Mr Aham Uko, says the state is putting pragmatic measures in place to offset a whooping N21 billion pension arrears.
Uko made the disclosure when he briefed newsmen in Umuahia on a fresh biometric verification of pensioners by the ministry, which kicked off in different parts of the state on Monday.
He said that the exercise was part of the measures designed to “remove irregular names” from the list and ascertain the exact number of genuine pensioners.
He further said that the verification was exclusive to state government and primary school retirees and entailed fingerprints and facial capturing of the pensioners.
The commissioner said that the 10-day exercise would end on March 27 to enable the ministry to pay the March pension to successful pensioners.
Uko said: “Government deemed it fit to conduct the biometric verification for pensioners to ascertain who the genuine pensioners are.
“The essence is to regularise and update the list of pensioners and remove the names of dead pensioners.
“Government’s intention is to ensure regular and seamless payment of pensions.”
He regretted that the ministry still had the names of dead pensioners running for upward of 10 years, adding that normally such beneficiaries “should not benefit beyond five years.”
He said that the exercise would help the government “to establish the quantum of arrears and be able to appropriate funds to liquidate the arrears in the coming months.”
The commissioner said that 55 persons were trained to run the exercise, adding that the ministry procured a server, plus a virtual server, for data storage at the end of the programme.
He said that arrangements were made to accommodate genuine pensioners, who travelled outside Nigeria.
“We made provision to capture spillovers, especially genuine pensioners outside Nigeria,” he said, adding that such persons should supply the vital information via the ministry’s website.
Uko said that plans were underway to also introduce Bank Verification Numbers to avoid duplication of names, in addition to creating a database for pensioners.
The commissioner said that the verification would help the ministry to have a comprehensive list of all the retirees, including those that retired from November 2019 to February.
He said that a list from Establishment and Pensions showed that the state’s monthly pension bill stood at N510 million before October but got reduced to N380 million after manual verifications.
“By the time we succeed in removing all the irregular names, the arrears would further come down.
“The ultimate objective is to ensure that after the verification, pensions would be paid as and when due,” he said.
The commissioner said that the ministry would extend the biometric verification to local government pensioners at the end of the ongoing exercise at the state level.
He also said that a similar verification would be conducted for the state civil servants in line with the government’s plan for automated salary payment to workers.
“By the time we automate salary payment, we shall no longer need the payroll officers and Directors of Finance to prepare salary schedule before we can pay salaries, except when there are transfers and promotions,” he said.
He said that adequate arrangements were put in place, including the provision of refreshment, free medical services and counselling, to make the verification stress-free for retirees.
Uko also spoke on the lingering inability of the government to pay gratuity to retirees, saying that he had not received the governor’s authorisation on that.
He said that government’s major concern presently was to stabilise and regularise the payment of pensions.
According to him, after that, government may begin to work out a strategy to set aside funds for the gradual payment of gratuities. (