Bauchi Assembly adopts motion on state, local govt pension bill

Majority Leader of the House, Hon. Tijjani Muhammad Aliyu representing Azare/Madangala Constituency had requested the House during its plenary 9n Thursday, to allow Bauchi State and Local Government Pension and Gratuity amendment Bill to undergo first reading.

Upon approval by the House, the Speaker directed the Clerk of the House, Umar Yusuf Gital Esq to carryout the first reading.

The Speaker, Abubakar Sulaiman who presided over plenary, asked the Majority Leader of the House, Hon. Tijjani Muhammad Aliyu to lead a debate on the Bauchi State and Local Governments Pension and Gratuity Amendment Bill

Leading the debate, the Majority Leader explained that the Bill intends to amend the retirement age of civil servants to increase the years of service from 35 years to 40 and from 60 years of birth to 65 years.

According to him, the reason for the amendment is because there is existence of long embargo on employment which created huge gap in the civil service of the State saying that the Bill, if passed into law, will encourage the government to lift embargo of employment into the State Civil service.

According to him, “Even if you lift the embargo there will be no senior officials to train the new workers. In the next one year in all the ministries in the State, we will not have administrative officers, because they would retire and they are the backbone of government business.”

He stressed that, “The system is suffering. We will wake up without officers that will work in the civil service because they are retiring and new ones are not employed. The Government should recruit more staff.”

Tijjani Muhammad Aliyu added that the extension of the retirement age will not add extra cost to the government because the amount of pension and gratuity that would be paid to them would be saved.

According to the Majority Leader, many states such as Kano, Katsina, Borno and Lagos have made similar amendments in which retirement age of their workers was extended therefore Bauchi should do it so that the system will not suffer.

He, therefore, moved that the House should allow the Bill to scale through second reading.

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