No Plan To Defraud Pensioners

EKITI State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi has refuted allegation that he wants to deduct N6b from pensioners’ entitlements.

The Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) in the state had alleged that Fayemi was colluding with a Lagos- based private company to deduct over N6b from pensioners in the state.

The party described the state government’s new scheme, in which pensioners desirous of getting their gratuities and pensions, were made to sign- off 15 percent of their entitlements as “wicked, callous and fraudulent.”

Responding, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Investment, Mr. Akin Oyebode, said Ekiti has paid pensioners N1.2b out of over N14b owed, by paying N100m monthly to defray the backlog of pension and gratuity arrears.

Oyebode, while appearing on a radio programme in Ado Ekiti, yesterday, said Fayemi had jarked up monthly payment of the arrears from N10m to N100m monthly, as the governor has the interest of pensioners at heart and has no reason whatsoever to defraud them, as alleged by the opposition party.

Meanwhile, the PDP Caretaker Committee Secretary, Prince Diran Odeyemi, blamed Fayemi for the accumulated pensions, and gratuities in the state, saying: “During his first tenure when Ekiti State was receiving N7b, as monthly allocation and over N46b from the Excess Crude Account,

Fayemi refused to pay retirees. He stopped allocating fund to the Pension Transition Arrangement Department in July 2012.

“When Fayemi returned as governor in 2018, he introduced favouritism to the payment of entitlements of retirees, as he chose to pay retired Permanent Secretaries, who retired in 2018 and 2019, with gratuities ranging between N12m and N15m and monthly pension running to over N400,000 each, while junior ones, with gratuity not more than N2m and monthly pension less than N30,000 were left unpaid...”

• As Ekiti PDP Alleges Plot To Deduct N6b From Pensioners’ Entitlements