Pensioners have urged the Federal Government to include their needs in the proposed palliative packages to cushion the effect of petrol subsidy removal.
President of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Godwin Abumisi, stated this in Abuja yesterday, while speaking on the palliatives, adding that pensioners should be treated as part of low-earners.
He argued that the call became necessary as the subsidy removal has further impoverished and pauperized the vulnerable Nigerian pensioners like other vulnerable groups of persons in the society who are struggling and battling for survival.
NUP observed that except if the palliative is not properly handled, rural dwellers and urban poor could be excluded.
The union said given the hardship pensioners who reside in rural areas go through before accessing their pensions, the government should include organised unions and associations that have a database of their members in the planned palliatives.
The pensioners also sought their inclusion into the proposed six months tax-free payment to public servants.
They accused the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) of withholding their benefits since 2007.
They said: “The Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS) pensioners under PTAD are being owed various pension liabilities, including the 2015 pension increment which the Union has been consistently pressing for its payment but to no avail.
“Also, worth mentioning is the pending liabilities of our members under the Contributory (Mandatory) Pension Scheme who are being short-changed 15 per cent of the 2007 pension review, 33 per cent of the 2010 pension review, omission of the 2015 pension review and the consequential adjustment of 2019. We believe whole-heartedly that if the above pension reviews are paid to our members as part of the proposed palliatives, it will go a long way to ameliorate the living conditions of our members who will a cause to smile once again, to the credit of the Tinubu-led administration.”
It stressed the need for the government whenever there is an upward review of salaries of civil servants under whatever guise, pensions should be reviewed alongside it and be captured in the same circular, saying retirees are workers in retirement.
It urged the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress (TUC) to include the NUP in the negotiation for any salary review, as against the current practice where pensioners are left on their own to slug it out with either the federal or state governments after the workers are paid several years after.
While they declare their support for the removal of subsidy, NUP expressed optimism that if the palliatives are well packaged, it will assuage the social pains Nigerians are going through.
“We believe that if the proposed palliatives are religiously implemented to the letter on record time devoid of the usual government bureaucratic bottlenecks, it will go a long way to assuage such pains as well as calm down frayed nerves of the obviously angry Nigerians,” NUP explained.
