The Borno state government has saved N400 million from ghost
pensioners during the bio-metric data capture and verification of
pensioners in the state.
The Head of Service (HoS), Mr. Simon Malgwi disclosed this Saturday at
a news conference held at Musa Usman Secretariat complex, Maiduguri,
the state capital.
He said that Governor Babagana Zulum; was also worried about incessant
complaints of pensioners; regarding delays in payments of their
retirement entitlements.
His words: “This prompted Prof. Zulum to order bio-metric verification
of the pension system in the state.
“On Thursday, March 12, 2020, His Excellency found it expedient to go
to the Pension Office, where a public hearing was in progress, and
took control of the situation.”
According to him, 387 complaints from pensioners were received by the
pension office through the Nigeria Union of Pension (NUP).
He said out of the 387 complaints; 70 have been cleared and captured
before the pension public hearing led by the Governor; while 129
biometric forms were not filled by the pensioners for processing and
capturing.
He noted that the exercise initiated by the governor, was with the
sole motive of ensuring those who served the state diligently and
retired do not suffer.
He said Zulum’s intervention also brought a lot of discovering;
including fraud in the payment and claims by pensioners.
While lamenting on ghost pensioners, he disclosed that; “We have saved
about N400 million as a result of the verification in the pension
system.”
According to him, the lingering cases of ghost pensioners, were
perpetrated through deliberate overstay in the service beyond
mandatory years of service.
“The ghost pensioners alter their dates of birth or year of entry into
the Civil Service of Borno State Governments,” he said.
He added that other alleged civil service fraud perpetrated, include
cases of some workers currently collecting salaries and pensions at
the same time.
He said some next of kin or relations of deceased pensioners sometimes
failed to report the death of the pensioners but continued to collect
the entitlement.
Malgwi therefore, described such alleged fraudulent acts as gross
misconduct and formidable betrayal of the state government.
“The state government would invoke appropriate provisions of civil
service rules or result to penal code where crimes were established to
address such misconduct in public service,” he warned.
He however, commended Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Nigeria Union
of Pensioners for the collaboration in the verification exercise.
He further disclosed that government has already commenced payment of
May salary to state civil servants to allow Muslims celebrate
forthcoming Islamic festival to mark Ed el Fitr.
“Early payments of salaries and pensions are to beat market prices and
alleviate the economic impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
