Pension: Niger govt denies owing retirees

The Niger state government on Tuesday declared that it does not owe any retiree under the old pension scheme their entitlements.

However the government explained that pensioners that fell under the new Contributory Pension Scheme were yet to start collecting their entitlements.

Director General of the State Pension Board, Alhaji Usman Tinau Ahmed, flanked by a host of top government officials, told newsmen at the Government House in Minna that between March 2016 and June this year, government had paid over N2.1billion as pension and gratuities to both state and local government retirees under the old scheme.

According to Tinau, 940 retirees in the local governments had enjoyed their benefits while a total of 388 pensioners from the state civil service had been paid.

He said government was still working out the augmentation for pensioners as a result of the increase in salary of workers between 2002 and 2014.

The Director General explained that government was still finding it difficult to find solution to the problem associated with the payment of retirees under the Contributory Pension Scheme.

” The CPS is a problem, the problem is not caused by this government , we have sent a bill to the house of assembly that if passed into law will solve the problem”

However the Director General said the Board assisted 48 workers that retired before the suspension of the CPS in 2014 to collect their entitlements.