The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Abia State chapter, has urged Governor Alex Otti to come out clean on the issue of pension arrears in the state.
The PDP said that Otti is making unproductive efforts, seeking cheap popularity by peddling lies to confuse and deceive the people of Abia State about the pension situation in the state.
Recall that Otti’s administration, for some months now, has been in the news for clearing 10 years of pension arrears; but a contrary view from pensioners in the state reveals that such may not be the case.
Abia PDP Vice Chairman/Acting State Publicity Secretary, Abraham Amah, said that in the last two months, Abia pensioners have been trending for the wrong reasons, wherein Otti claimed that he had cleared their outstanding nine or 10 years pension arrears.
Amah said: “To show further proof that the claim is false and embellished with visible lies, there are discrepancies in the claim, because Otti, his operatives and the pensioners do not agree on the accurate number of months cleared.
“While his Commissioner for Finance said it is nine years, Otti, in the United States, said that it is ten years, while pensioners insist that only a certain percentage of the nine months arrears owed them since the inception of the Otti administration were cleared. At this point, we will leave the judgment to discerning Abians.”
Amah said that earlier in the week, the enlarged Executive Council-in-session of the Abia chapter of the National Pensioners Union (NUP) released a statement dissociating itself from any agreement entered into between the government and pensioners, which purportedly agreed that pensioners forgo all outstanding arrears, as a condition for the regular payment of their monthly pension.
The PDP Spokesman said that a few days later, the governor, during a press briefing, responded to claims by the enlarged Executive Council-in-session of the NUP, Abia State chapter that they never agreed to forfeit their outstanding arrears as a condition for the payment of their monthly pensions. They noted that it was a huge joke for the NUP to claim that it was a mistake and that the section should be expunged.
He went further to accuse Otti of taking advantage of the desperation of the pensioners to insert that obnoxious clause in that agreement, adding that such an action is the height of infidelity, especially as he had promised, several times, during the campaigns and after the elections that he would clear any pension arrears he met in office.
