Pensioners protest non-payment of 36 months arrears

Piqued by the continued delayed in the settlement of their entitlement, pensioners under the auspices of federal pensioners, Northwest zone Tuesday demand immediate release of their 36 months arrears, out of the 33 per cent arrears.

The Pensioner who staged their peaceful protest after addressing members at the old campus of Bayero University, Kano, filed out in their numbers with placards with inscription: “Mr President pay us our 33 per cent pension arrears of 36 months, General Buhari Save our soul, Federal pensioners are dying, our children are out of school because we have no money to pay their school fees,” “Mr. President, pensioners are hungry; no proper feeding.”

Besides, the retirees consisting members from Federal Colleges of Education, Kano, Panshin, Bichi, Katsina, Gusau as well as Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano and National Orthopedic Hospital, Kano, lamented the death of about 300 members in the last two years.

Malam Muhammad Isa who spoke on behalf of the federal pensioners in the Northwest zone expressed lack of confidence in the executive secretary of Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) manager of the pension while calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to probe the agency, they considered shrouded in the fraudulent and unpatriotic act.

Isa worried by what he described as divide and rule tactics being deployed by PTAD which was targeted in favour of some sectors at the detriment of others.

According to Isa, “We have no confidence in PTAD, especially the executive secretary who has adopted a selective manner of payment in favour Customs, Immigration, Police and Prison services as well as paying the University of Lagos teaching hospital pensioners 12 months arrears last August.

“We pensioners have served this country diligently and we are aged and most of us are on medical drugs. We are no longer employed and we don’t have any regular means of income. We can no longer pay our children school fees, we can no longer provide for our families. We massively voted for President Buhari in 2015 and we appeal to him to use his good office to ensure the release of funds for the payment of our arrears.”

He spoke further, “Mr. President, we would like to express our lack of confidence on the executive secretary of PTAD and call on Mr President to constitute a panel to investigate PTAD since its inception, what it took over, all other allocation made to it, its disbursement, the mode of the disbursement and also ascertain the claim of the executive secretary on the sources of the payments to those favoured sectors.

The entire pensioners, who have been struggling in the last nine years for PTAD to settle our 33 per cent pensions arrears want Mr President to use his authority to prevail on PTAD to pay our outstanding 33 per cent pension arrears before the year runs out.”