Retirees call for inclusion into FG’s social safety net
Retirees have called on the Federal Government to factor them into its social safety net programme to cushion the effect of delayed and non-payment of pension across the country.
Directing his call to the Federal Government, a retired civil servant, who is also a member of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Mr. Peter Uchenna, said pensioners in Nigeria do not enjoy any social security apart from their pension.
He said the Federal Government has been implementing social safety programmes, including conditional cash transfers, without factoring in pensioners.
Social safety net is a collection of services provided by the state or other institutions such as welfare, unemployment benefit, universal healthcare, homeless shelters, and sometimes subsidized services such as public transport, which prevent individuals from falling into poverty beyond a certain level.
“They give money to traders, graduates and even young people under the safety net programme. Nobody remembers us. What they don’t know and somebody should tell them is that we need it the most. Most of us are sick. Some of us depend on relatives to survive,” he said.
Another retiree, also a member of the NUP, Ijaparda Ibrahim, lamented the absence of health insurance coverage for retirees and the non-payment of pension by many states.
“Pensioners are dying. When you’ve not received your pension and you don’t have money and you are sick, won’t you die?” he asked.
Recently, Secretary of the the Executive Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), Sharon Ikeazor, told Daily Trust that her office has been in talks with the Ministry of Health and the National Healthcare Insurance Scheme (NHIS) on how to provide health insurance cover for retirees.
Ikeazor said it is worrying that workers are removed from the NHIS upon retirement, being the point in life that the need healthcare insurance more.
The National Coordinator of National Social SafetyNets (NASSCO), Iorwa Apera, disclosed yesterday that his office was collaborating with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to develop a register of the poor of the poorest in the society for government’s social security.
He said the data had become imperative owing to the need to extend such government interventions to those that truly need it.