Ondo State Governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, yesterday said that his administration had been able to pay about N6 billion out of the arrears of gratuities inherited from the previous administration. According to the governor, those who retired from the state’s civil service in the last four years were also affected.
Akeredolu stated this while receiving members of the National Pension Commission (NATPENCOM) led by the National Commissioner, Clement Oyedele Akintola. While emphasising that his government had continued to pay pensioners their monthly pensions, he stressed that salaries’ of workers and arrears of gratuities were being paid in spite of paucity of funds. Akeredolu also promised that the state would continue to defray accumulated arrears of gratuities owed by the administration of former Governor Olusegun Mimiko.
The governor added that his government had braved the odds to migrate workers who were employed from September, 2014 to the new pension scheme. He noted that the old scheme was bedevilled with encumbrances and burden, stressing that genuine effort must be made to convince workers that the new Contributory Pension Scheme was far better than the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS) that was the old scheme. He said: “Our workers on the new scheme are expected to live a comfortable life devoid of any form of dependency after their successful retirement from active service.” Earlier, leader of the team, Clement Oyedele Akintola, commended the state government for recording a giant stride in the implementation of the new contributory pension scheme. He charged the state to deploy sufficient ICT infrastructure to drive the implementation of the scheme, saying the scheme was designed to reduce the pension burden of state governments.