Pensions Boss Assures Rivers State Pensioners of Welfare

The Rivers state Director of Pension, Mr. Thomas Douglas, has assured pensioners from the state of their welfare, pledging that the state pension commission will continue to give them priority attention, by ensuring that their benefits are paid promptly.
The Director made the remark at the South-South Zonal meeting of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners on Tuesday in Port Harcourt.
Douglas explained that the 2011 retirees, whose files had been processed and received, had already received their gratuity payments without stress.
The Director added that machineries are in place to ensure that the processing of pension benefits was duly completed without the common challenges that are associated with the payment of benefits to retirees.
According to him, ‘Payment of monthly pensions is on a regular basis and the retirees have continuously been receiving their monthly pensions through designated banks.’
Douglas added that the harmonization of pensioners’ annual increase and arrears that arose from six and 15 per cent had been worked out and submitted for approval.
Commenting, His Royal Highness, Kaleh Obuge, the traditional ruler of Abua Kingdom, called for a change in the retirement age from 60 years to 70 years.
The traditional ruler noted that the civil service was an engine room and wheel on which every government activity revolved, be it military or civilian.
He lamented that ‘It is regrettable that nowadays, record keeping in the civil service is treated with levity, thereby creating room for falsification, time wasting and loss of vital documents and information.’
 ‘Many a time, those affected are denied benefits or entitlements because of inaccurate information. This is the usual case whenever personal papers or documents are not given adequate or desired attention,’ he added.
Obuge also took them to task on the problem of delayed payments and harmonization of allowances to pensioners, while urging the union to work out modalities for sick and aged pensioners to receive their pensions without difficulty.
However, the state chairman of the union, Mr Edward Festus-Abibo, called for the payment of federal pension arrears and gratuity to Batch 17 list and other subsequent batches in order to ameliorate their hardships.