Other governors must emulate Sanwo-Olu

The Lagos State government under the leadership of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu deserves much commendation for the giant steps taken so far to address the issue relating to pension and gratuities scheme in the state.

Although there are so many dicey aspects around this issues generally which tend to make its implementation more of a calculated subterfuge designed to shortchange workers, the governor has, through his recent actions, shown himself as a very humane and understanding fellow ready to tackle a perennial problem head-on in a bid to assuage the untold hardships and sufferings to which retirees have been subjected over the years.

Before now, many retired workers in Lagos were known to die before their payments came through while many also turned complete destitute due to inability to access their money promptly. But with Sanwo-Olu’s new approach, it is obvious that the days of sufferings for retired workers are gradually coming to an end.

However, the new lease of life being discussed here relates only to Lagos State workers while the fate of workers in most of the other states of the federation still hangs in the balance. For most of the other states, the workers remain hopeless since most times, the deductions from their salaries are not being remitted to the appropriate quarters and so it will be most difficult for them to enjoy the same privilege as their Lagos counterparts. Even at that, the Lagos government itself still has some explanation to make and apology to tender.

It is surprising, for instance, that the so-called bond being handed to retirees after a long delay is actually the money that accrued to each worker under the old pension scheme as the level and designation used in calculating how much each worker receives stipulate.

These funds under the old scheme which otherwise would have been idle since they cannot be released to workers who are still in active service were invested on their behalf payable at retirement together with the amount that accrue to them under the new scheme.

This being so, the question the government must answer is that why are the funds that accrued to workers under the old scheme are not being paid directly to them as they retire so that what will be left for workers will be the funds that accrue to the new scheme with the Pension Fund Administrators? Why must workers wait for the two to be merged before payment is done?

Besides, it is perhaps after retired workers get to see their total pension packages that they always realise that it is nothing to write home about and very disappointing, to say the least. If after a statutory working life spanning more than 30 years and representing the most productive period of every individual’s life, such meagre amount is what is involved, perhaps the most appropriate name for the programme should not be pension scheme but persons scream because that is exactly the reaction such pittance is bound to elicit whenever the reality dawns on those concerned. In any case, since the amounts received are savings deducted directly from each worker’s salary and never a gift from the government, the issue of a living wage for workers becomes very crucial. If those in the tertiary institutions can be receiving such huge pension benefits, there is no reason none of those in the lower cadre of education should have such utterly poor package.

Indeed, workers through their unions need to rise up to demand living wages for themselves from their employers. Maybe what the government ought to do is to retrench all those without any job specifications who dominate the public sector space so that those left may be put on a right scale as their counterparts in the tertiary institutions.

The shocking reality of poor pension, coupled with the long delays attached to its processing is responsible for so much corruption in every government’s establishment and why most civil servants portray themselves as unrepentant graft merchants.

Such long delays and utterly annoying retirement package can only continually send a warning signal to all workers still in service to gird their loins and realise that their well-being after service would depend largely on whatever they are able to grab before their time expires, and that anyone caught napping, hoping to find comfort and succour after retirement should only expect himself in the camp of lamentations.

That is why it is most annoying that rather than confront an arrangement tantamount to servitude and demand for a living wage, what the civil service unions leaders have done over the years is to pay lip service to the issue of fighting for enhancement of workers’ welfare.

The only solution, as it were, is to return to the drawing board of setting things right in a way that addresses the issue at hand in a most acceptable manner Remuneration payable to workers must be commensurate with work done and all issues of pension must be fair and just.

The Federal Government must prevail on all the states not remitting deductions from workers salaries to the pension funds administrators to urgently do so to ensure that no worker is denied what truly belongs to him. Again, workers’ salaries must be upgraded to enhance their pension packages.

After all, the governors themselves after a maximum regime of eight years always arrange huge pension packages for themselves, why then must those who spend 35 years be paid pittance as pension benefits? Of course, that will only continue to generate screaming tension in the land with almost all sectors rendered comatose while governance itself is continually confronted by an army of saboteurs who would never allow anything to work.

Oyewusi, the coordinator of Ethics Watch International, wrote from Lagos.