LOCAL government pensioners in Benue state converged at the seat of government yesterday to protest nonpayment of their pension allowances and arrears running about 70 months.
The Chairman of the LG pensioners, Comrade Michael Vembe who spoke to the deputy governor, Engineer Benson Abounu who represented Governor Samuel Ortom explained many of his members are passing through terrible life due to nonpayment of their allowances and arrears.
The pensioners who carried placards with various inscriptions such as; ‘ pay us our pensions’, ‘EFCC come and rescue LG pensioners in Benue’, ‘Gov Samuel Ortom pay LG pensioners their pension arrears, and others in unison chorused ‘we need our entitlements to pay our children school fees’.
Vembe said that the protesters were in the group of local government retirees since 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 that were yet to be captured.
He added that some of the local government pensioners have not been captured and added that those who were captured could not benefit from the N200 million monthly the governor approved for pensioners because the fund was insufficient.
” I want to appeal to our governor to place us on monthly pension, the group of local government retirees who retired since 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 have not been captured”
He appealed to governor Ortom to grant approval of N70million only to place this category of pensioners on monthly pension allowance like those who have already been captured.
While responding, Governor Samuel Ortom who was represented by his deputy, Engineer Benson Abounu enjoined the protesters to exercise patience.
He assured them that the state government would release funds to them as soon as Paris Club fund is released.
“The governor asked me to meet with you and to tell you to exercise patient, we are expecting some funds from Paris Club as soon as the money comes we will address the issue”.
“We cannot say precisely when the money will come, actually we thought that the money would hit out bank last week but the minister of finance said there was paucity of funds, so anytime the money will come and we promise to pay something to alleviate your problems”, he concluded.
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