Niger pays over N2, 611 to pensioners

The Niger State Government says it has so far paid N2, 611, 487, 843.42 to the state and local government pensioners in the last three years.

The director-general of the state’s pensions board, Usman Tinau Muhammad, disclosed this to newsmen in Minna yesterday.

He said N1,028,904,235.18 was paid to the pensioners in the state employment; and N1,582,583,608.24, to local government workers.

He said the board carried out an analysis of N4.3 billion outstanding liabilities it met on ground, saying “after a careful look at the figure, a final amount of N2.06 billion was finally established as outstanding liabilities, under the Defined Benefit Scheme for the State and Local Government beneficiaries”.

Muhammad alleged that Pension Fund Administrators (PFA) are frustrating the payment of entitlements to pensioners under the contributory pensions scheme.

“There have been some observed delays by the PFAs who are deliberately dragging the process of the payment of the refunds to beneficiaries. Having observed this, the board intimated PENCOM in some of its several correspondences and reported the issue of undue delays by PFAs”, he said.

He, however, noted that the situation had changed in the last three weeks as 10 out the 19 PFAs involved had started effecting payments.