19 YEARS AFTER, NPA PAYS RETIREES N1000, N2000, N3000 PENSION
• Retirees Claim 1,500 Members Are Dead
After foot-dragging and allegedly showing discourtesy to the rulings of the apex court, the Supreme Court and two other lower courts, the Nigerian Ports Authority, (NPA), has finally commenced staggered payments of pensions to its employees who were retired in 1991 in the wake of the agency’s aborted commercialisation exercise.
However, majority of the affected workers, who have been trooping to their banks on learning that payments have commenced, were disappointed because the payment never reflected in their accounts while others were paid a paltry sum of between N1, 000 and N4, 000 as pension arrears for 19 years.
They accused NPA management of disobeying court orders and ministerial directive on the controversial payment.
Spokesman for the ex-workers who have adopted the nomenclature of ‘NPA Retirees’, Mr Sylva Okoro who led two other members of the group to our office last week, lamented that since 1991 when about 3,000 personnel were retired, over 1,500 have passed on.
“About 50 percent of us have died in this struggle. About two days ago, one woman was buried. When we see our people dying day- in- day- out, we feel so bad for what NPA is doing, people who should have tasted the fruit of their labour are now dying, most of us were breadwinners in our homes but with this deprivation of our pension and gratuities, we have become nothing, our wives and children no longer give us respects, our children are no longer going to school and we cannot even pay our house rent, that is why you see us crying. How should somebody finish working in NPA and afterwards become a beggar, it is very bad”, he lamented.
The retirees also doubted the sincerity of a recent publication to the effect that they could now collect their entitlements, saying it is a “gimmick and deceit”
“We have done corrections on bank details, and incorrect/incomplete bank details. We have done every correction; NPA wants to use the errors as an excuse to delay our payment”, he added.
He expressed shock that NPA was paying the retirees a paltry sum as pensions saying the amount was not only ridiculous, but also condemnable. He also alleged that most of them were not even paid anything.
But sources in NPA, who pleaded anonymity, disclosed that the pensions were worked out based on the prevailing salary scale as at 1991 when they were retired.
“How much was I earning even as a university graduate in 1991. My salary was about N500, so how can they be comparing that time with now”? he queried.
(Please go to pages 6 and 7 for details)
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