By Aaron Ukodie
The over 13,000 retirees of the defunct NITEL and Mtel are worried and asking questions over the suspension of the payment of their pension.
Sources told eWorldnews that the retirees, whose monthly pension payment began on October last year, was last paid in June, this year. The retirees who were expecting the payment, which normally comes before the end of the month did not receive the payment for July. A new month is running to an end, and the former public telecommunication companies’ workers fear August may also pass by without their being paid.
Investigation revealed that the suspension of the payment started when the President Muhammadu Burhari’s first term cabinet was dissolved and the former minister of finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, herself a former NITEL staff, vacated office.
Sources claim that Ahmed, who has sympathy with the NITEL workers, had budgeted for the payment to cover until December this year, and there was no reason for the payment not to be effected.
Now, tongues are wagging, and questions are being asked as to what may have happened to the budgeted fund, immediately Ahmed left office.
The payment schedule is also said to have been verified and approved by the former Executive Secretary, Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), Mrs. Sharon Ikeazor, who has also been nominated for a ministerial position.
When the workers, including the incoming minister, did not receive their July payment, she was said to have asked ministry of finance officials why the payment was suspended. The query, it was gathered, spurred meetings with concerned parties in a bid to resolve the reason for the suspension.
Ahmed, who may be returned as finance minister under Buhari’s second term, had told ministry officials that there was no reason for the payment to be suspended, since it was budgeted for to cover up to December.
Monthly pension payment for the NITEL/Mtel retirees began following the suspension of the buyout scheme that was entered into in 2007, when the beneficiaries were verified and the scheme began. Under the buy-out scheme the workers were paid in bulk to cover five years, from 2007 to 2012.
The workers who did not like the arrangement went to court to seek a reversal which resulted to the suspension of the buyout arrangement and the monthly payment began in October 2018.
