The Rivers State All Progressives Congress has called on the state government to work with anti-graft agencies to investigate and probe the state pension office.
According to the APC, it has “received credible information from multiple sources” that some Rivers State state pension office officials who should be “serving the interests of retired civil servants” have turned themselves into “black marketers.”
Darlington Nwauju, the state Publicity Secretary of the APC, claimed on Tuesday that pensioners are being asked to pay hundreds of thousands of naira in exchange for “routine physical interview sessions” conducted for them or their family members prior to payment of gratuities.
Nwauju wondered how a “simple exercise” aimed at eliminating identity theft would be “turned to an avenue for exploitation of poor pensioners or their relatives” just as he expressed sadness that most retirees from the state civil service from 2015 till date are yet to access their pensions.
The APC called on the Rivers State Government not to adopt the “primitive style of living in self-denial” but to deal squarely with the “racketeering and unethical practices going on at the state pension office”.
The APC spokesman said the party is also aware that the state’s contributory pension scheme has forced hundreds of civil servants into early retirement as the scheme has totally “collapsed”.