Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno state has raised a biometric data capture panel on pensioners’ documentation and pension payments for retired workers. The panel has two weeks to submit its report to the Governor for implementation. Inaugurating the committee on Thursday at the Government House, Maiduguri, Shettima said that the panel headed by Alhaji Yerima Saleh, the ex-Head of Service (HoS), is to overcome the problems of pensioners’ documentation and payments. He said that even though 9,000 pensioners were cleared by Workers Biometrics Committee (WBC), 500 pensioners have pending cases that withheld payments of their pensions. According to him, the panel has representatives of stakeholders, including National Union of Pensioners (NUP), Mohammed Abdullahi, Ali Grema and Mai Bukar Galtimari. His words: “You’re to ensure that pensioners, whose biometric data and other documentation are cleared to commence payments of their pensions. “Most of the pensioners had been collecting their pension, after undergoing the workers’ biometric data capture exercise since 2016.” He said the inauguration of the panel, followed concerns of a group pensioners; ‎who protested on Thursday at Musa Usman secretariat complex over non-payments of their pensions. Shettima explained that the bio-metrics had been complex; because some persons benefited from all kinds of fraudulent activities ‎through pension payments. “They were determined to frustrate the exercise by employing various tricks to siphon public fund,” he lamented. He said the biometric committee; had identified ghost pensioners, adding that some persons had been collected millions of naira as pensions along with collection of monthly salaries. Shettima attributed the simultaneous collection of pension and salaries to “poor payments system” that allowed fraudulent activities in workers’ salary and pension payments. He further disclosed that over 9,000 pensioners have already been cleared and captured in the biometric exercise with their regular pension payments. He noted that only 500 pensioners had cases with their bio-metrics data capture, including 53 pensioners, who could not provide their Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) and bank statements. On pensioners’ protests, he said: “One hundred and seventy one pensioners were cleared by the workers’ biometric data capture committee. “But they failed to present their Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) and bank statements as part of the requirements for submission to the biometric data capture committee. He also directed that the 300 pensioners that are yet to be captured, be cleared and documented by the committee within two weeks. While defending the workers biometric data capture, Shettima said: “Over 33,000 workers were on the payrolls of Borno state government for many years. This has resulted into government to pay over N2.5 billion monthly salary bills. “After conducting workers’ bio-metrics capture, the number of genuine workers dropped to 20,154 out which 2,000 are about to retire from the civil service.” He said the biometric exercise has already identified about 12,000 ghost workers. According to him, the exercise has saved N600 million on monthly wage bill of state government. He pledged that the saved monies from ghost workers; are to be re-allocated to other Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), while government is to engage 1,000 teachers and other administrative staff into State’s Civil Service. He said with this development; the embargo on employment has been lifted, which was in existence since the early 90’s. The protesting pensioners told the Governor that they were ignorant of issues of workers biometric data capture exercise. They pledged to abide with biometric data capture requirements for documentation into the National Union of Pensioners (NUP).
