By Dada Ahmed.
The National Union of Contributory Pension Scheme (NUPCPS) has declared that it will no longer tolerate delays by Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) in implementing the pension increments approved by the Federal Government for its members.
The National President of the Union, Comrade Sylva Nwaiwu, issued the warning in an online broadcast to members across the country, a copy of which The Reporters obtained in Lokoja on Friday.
Comrade Nwaiwu attributed the the delays to bureaucratic bottlenecks between PFAs and some of their clients.
He explained that challenges such as errors were recorded especially in the 2007 pension increment, misinformation,omission or mixup of pensioners’names and instances of short-changing have contributed to the delay but noted that PenCom is making deliberate efforts to address these issues.
He stressed that pensioners who have no problem in their documentations should not be subjected to unnecessary setbacks in receiving their rightful payments.
The Union national chairman reminded PFAs that PenCom had concluded its work and issued a clear directive ordering them to commence payment of arrears of allowances to eligible pensioners without delay, emphasizing that PFAs have no legal justification to ignore the directive in implementing the payments.
“They should go ahead and pay all pensioners who have no issues, especially those whose increments have already been uploaded for processing,” he insisted.
Our Correspondent recalls that the Tinubu-led administration approved a landmark ₦758 billion bond to clear all outstanding pension increment owed to Contributory Pension Scheme pensioners since 2007, with a firm directive to PenCom and other stakeholders to ensure prompt payment to all affected pensioners.
Our Correspondent in Lokoja, Kogi State, reports that many CPS pensioners who visited their various PFAs in the state capital over the past three days as at Friday, they usually return home disappointed.
Some of them told the online publication that although they saw the payment listed for them.in their PFA accounts, they were yet to receive the 50 per cent credit in their accounts as promised by the PFAs.
