The federal gùovernment has not fulfilled its promise to pay N25.000 as palliative to reduce the effects of fuel subsidy removal, Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) has said.
NUP head of information, Comrade Bunmi Bunmi Ogunkolade, also told the media in Abuja Tuesday appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to direct the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission to issue an enabling circular for the new minimum pension in accordance with the recently signed minimum wage law for workers.
The government had last year pledged that it would pay N35,000 and N25,000 to federal workers and the retirees respectively as wage awards for 6 months, starting from October 2023, to serve as palliative.
The federal government according to records paid the six months to their workers and some few states also paid, while the retirees were not paid a dim
Comrade Ogunkolade further explained that pensioners had made different appeals to the government through appropriate authorities but their pleas were yet to be attended to.
“We’ve written several letters to the ministry of humanitarian affairs and poverty alleviation. We’ve paid different courtesy visit to the ministry, all to no avail. We were told that our matter was hanging because of what happened in the ministry.
“We’ve also lodged our complaints to the national assembly. We met with the Chairman, House committee on Pension. We’re using this medium again to appeal to them, to give us the wage award and resolve the issue of minimum pension,” he said.
He however, disclosed that pensioners have received 20% pension increment meant for January to August 2024 in their various bank account, while thanking the federal government on behalf of NUP about the development.
“We are using this medium to appreciate the federal government being led by President Bola Tinubu for fulfilling his promise to effect 20% increment on the monthly pension of our members, this is unprecedented.
“We hope that other two pending issues – palliative and ‘minimum pension’ as mentioned above would be attended to as well,” he said.
