Yakubu Busari
The Malam Nasir El-Rufai administration in Kaduna state has paid over N33.191billion pension liabilities, which includes gratuity and death benefits for relatives of deceased retirees in the old Defined Benefits Pension Scheme.
The payment to the retirees is from February 2017 to June 2022.
Elrufai’s administration inherited a pension debt of over N15 billion from the previous administration but has now cleared the liability.
In 2017, the Kaduna state government migrated from the old Defined Benefit Pension Scheme to the Contributory Pension Scheme and it has been up to date in remittance to Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs).
Last year (2021), a decision was taken by the governor and all the 23 local government chairmen to contribute N15 million monthly, to enable the phasing out of the old pension scheme.
Each of the local governments contributed for three months and realized N1.05 billion.
The N1.05 billion released is for the 22 out of 23 LGAs, as Kudan already finished paying its gratuity and death benefit in April 2022.
The payment from the Contributory Pension Scheme is sequential and follows the queue, in batches.
The state government had already released funds on 19th May 2022, and it is in the gratuity/death benefits accounts of the Pension Bureau.
This, therefore, brings to an end the era of owing pensioners in the state.
Kaduna state pensioners should also have means of survival after retirement as it is expected that every pensioner should go to their Pension Funds Administrators for verification and payment at the provided time.
