The Association of
Cross River State Local Government Pensioners has lost 28 members from June,
2016 till date, due to non-payment of their pension entitlements.
The Chairman of the
association, Mr. Okosin Bassey, made the claim in a statement he issued in
Calabar on Wednesday.
He blamed the
development on “the inefficiency of the consultant engaged by the State
Government to verify the pensioners with a view to eliminating ghost
pensioners’’.
Bassey explained
that the verification which was carried out by Techvite Consultants in June
2016 was “faulty, misleading and filled with confusion’’.
He described the
consultants as inexperienced young school leavers, who had no idea of managing
payment systems.
“The consultants
that were employed to do this job did not settle down for the work they were
hired to do.
“The consultants
would go to the radio to announce verification venue and date when in the
actual sense, they were not ready for the exercise.
“As a result, these
elderly men and women were dragged from their homes, visiting locations and
hospitals to the venue of the exercise and sometimes the consultant would not
be there.
“Over 28 of our
members have died within this period through man’s inhumanity to man, arising
from non-payment of seven months pension arrears.’’
Bassey said that the
verification of 4,120 pensioners claimed to have been carried out by the
consultants was characterised by faulty and questionable data.
“During the
exercise, questionable names were injected into the names of pensioners. Some
pensioners were paid between one and two years in advance.
“Over 600 out of the
4,120 that were verified have their data wrongly supplied to the banks by the
consultants. All these irregularities are affecting us so much.
“Also, the
consultants have bluntly ignored to include the names of over 600 pensioners,
who were newly retired between the months of June to December, 2016.
The chairman stated
that members of the association would no longer attend verifications, handled
by consultants.
(NAN)
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