Borno State Governor, Prof. Babagana Zulum; has disbursed N12 billion gratuities to 4,865 living and deceased retired civil workers in the state. According to him, the payments of retirees’ gratuities, were facilitated by State House of Assembly to secure N12 billion bank loan offset bag logs of gratuity. While distributing the cheques Tuesday to retirees at Government House, Maiduguri, he disclosed that; “The accumulated backlog of gratuities over years; has become worrisome. “Government is making frantic efforts to settle all outstanding gratuities and pension arrears to retired workers in the state. He said that the payments of gratuities to retired workers and Local Government Pensioners (LGP) will reduce their hardships during the recession and coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. “This is in fulfilment of my electioneering campaign promises to people of Borno,” he said, adding that government will settle all outstanding gratuities of retired workers. While lamenting bag logs of pensions, he said: “Right now the total gratuities due for retirees in the state, is about N30 billion; because the retired civil servants are owing the state government N17 million. “The Local Education Authority (LEA) alone constitutes about N6 billion, which has not been captured, while the local government staff, are also owing us about N4 billion.” He said the total gratuities due for payments to retired workers in Borno, is about N28 billion. He also lamented that workers that retired between 2012 and 2014 and worked for 35 years, cannot be paid their retirement benefits. Zulum attributed the non-payments of retired workers’ gratuities to corruption. According to him; “Payments that were made during my processor, Sen. Kashim Shettima, have not adequately reached the beneficiaries. He said the state government shall do everything possible to check such corruption in the civil service system. “Under no circumstances, any of the retired workers shall be paid by cash,” he declared, before presenting the cheques to retirees. While clarifying modes of payments, he said: “All payments must be made through cheques or emails,” adding that a memo must also be received from the Head of Service (HoS) detailing the number of beneficiaries and amount to be collected. He added that all beneficiaries and their respective pension payments be published in national dailies. Speaking on genuine retirees, he said: “We shall ensure in the first disbursement exercise, that all retired workers between 2013 and 2017 be fully paid. “While retired workers with gratuities payments below N4 million from 2019 to date are also to be fully paid,” noting that the N12 billion secured loan may not settle bag logs of gratuities. He also appealed to those who are not part of first phase of disbursement; to exercise patience. “We’re working to settle them as soon as possible,” he said, as government has commenced the automatic migration of retirees from salary to pension since May, 2020. The State’s HoS, Simon Malgwi said that the Zulum administration had been giving topmost priority to the payments of workers’ entitlements and welfares. He said the police thrust of administration hinges on accountability, transparency, compassion and good governance with workers’ welfare as its guiding principles
