Kaduna Pensioners Urge El-Rufai To Decentralise Verification Exercise

From Julius Kezi, Kafanchan
Kaduna State government pensioners in zone three have appealed to the state government to decentralise the ongoing verification exercise to ease them of the difficulties associated with the exercise.
The pensioners made the appeal in an interview with journalists at the venue of the exercise in Kafanchan on Tuesday.
Chairman, Jema’a Local Government chapter of Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Mr. Barnabas Madugu said the decentralization of the verification was necessary in view of long distances, ill health and the aged amongst pensioners.
Madugu said government needs to consider the plea to minimize cases of frequent collapse of pensioners at the verification centres, besides risks involved in travelling long distances and hash weather.
Secretary of the Union, Mr. Bitrus Daniel, also called on the state government to consider upward review of pension allowance paid to its senior citizens in line with global standards, considering the current economic challenges.
Daniel expressed concern that some banks were not regular in rendering services at the verification venues, thereby causing untold hardship to the pensioners.
He explained that some banks do not honour cheques issued by other banks, while others would insist that pensioners must open account with them before they are credited.
Contributing, another pensioner and the District Head of Manchok, Mr. Thomas Kazah, commended the state government, under the leadership of Malam Nasir el-Rufa’i, for embarking on the verification exercise, emphasizing that it will go a long way in sanitizing the operation of the state pension boards.
The pensioners argued that the verification exercises be carried out in more conducive venues and that banks contracted to handle the exercise should have deploy personnel to make the work faster. They also want the banks to comply with the rules and regulations governing the exercise, to guarantee the attainment of desired objectives.
It was also discovered that the files of some local governments staff who retired one to two years ago are yet to reach the pension board, therefore, the affected staff were not verified, which would not put government in a proper position to know the actual staff on retirement or plan adequately for their pension benefits.