Adamawa state government releases N15m monthly to upset gratuity of LG workers

By Muhammad Babangida Muhammad

The Chairman Adamawa state Local Government Staff Pension Board Mr John Medugu says Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri on assuming office, approved upward review of the monthly allocation to fifteen million naira for payment of gratuity of retired local government workers in the state.

Before then, only three point five million naira was monthly allocated for the purpose.

Speaking to newsmen in his office in Yola, Mr Medugu said Governor Umaru Fintiri intervention has ensured steady off-setting of the arrears of the workers entitlement.

He revealed that the Governor who kept to his promise, constituted a technical committee that verified the number of pensioners that government owed gratuity and pension a report on which was submitted adding that hopefully the plight of pensioners in the state will soon be over.

Mr Medugu added that since the coming of the Fintiri led administration, local government pension board has been responsive and has paid those who retired from two thousand and seven based on medical and health grounds.

The Chairman said the board was working hard to offset the arrears for six thousand, three hundred and twenty three pensioners on government payroll, and called on the pensioners to remain calm and resolute.

He opined that if the previous administrations had been committed as Governor Umaru Fintiri is on the welfare of local government pensioners, the state would not have accumulated the entitlement of this category of retired workers.

As at the time of the interviews, ABC Yola government house correspondents observed pensioners in the Adamawa Local Government Staff Pension Board collecting bank cheques of one hundred thousand naira each as palliative to cushion their hardships.

In an interview, Mr Adamu Dachi a blind man who retired in two thousand and seven and collected his cheque said for thirteen years he has been struggling to get his entitlements to no avail.

On his part, Muhammad Ubandoma who retired in two thousand and eight expressed disappointment with the negative attitude of some past leaders towards the condition of retirees, and thanked Governor Umaru Fintiri for giving them new a lease of life.

Hadiza Usman, a local government staff who collected the cheque in respect of her late retired father, Bobbo Usman who retired in twenty thirteen narrated that her father died in anguish in twenty seventeen after scaling over hurdles to process his terminal entitlements.