Kaduna govt spends N19.9bn on pension, gratuity, death benefits in one year

The administration of Governor Uba Sani has spent N19.9 billion on pension, gratuity and death benefits of civil servants since the government came on board last year.

Executive Secretary of Kaduna Pension Bureau, Professor Salamatu Idris Isah, made this disclosure on Thursday during a One-Day Sensitization exercise on data Recapture for Kaduna State Public Servants under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).

Professor Isah urged the civil servants to perfect their records to avoid challenges after retirement, saying though the state is still facing the challenge of inherited pension liabilities, yet between May 2023 and May 2024, the present administration expended N13 billion on the state monthly pension scheme and local government pension.

Also, she stated that a total sum of N6.9 billion has been expended on gratuity payments within the same period.

“The essence of the programme is to ensure that, all Kaduna Civil Servants are well documented by the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) because that is the only way to ensuring a seamless receipt of retirement their retirement benefits.

“We want to from now prevent the challenges of errors in names, BVN not tallying with name or National Identity Number (NIN) not captured.

“The reason we had to do this data recapturing is that a good number of the civil servants were captured when there was no BVN or NIN. 

“We also got to know that the PFAs have not been able to do data capturing properly for all the public servants of Kaduna State. Even though they have registered with the PFAs but, the PFAs getting detailed information about their clients when they are retiring is significant. 

“So, with this sensitisation, civil servants who have not done proper registration with their PFAs will know what to do. From the presentations, the civil servants have been told what and what they need to do.”

She however noted that the only challenge is the huge liabilities the state has to settle. “Though, the liabilities have reduced drastically, but it is still something that we need to put more effort into, especially that we have disengaged teachers that have not received their gratuities and death benefits,” she said.

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