Fcc Jones
The Government of Imo State has commenced full payment of pension benefits to all verified pensioners in the State. Governor Rochas Okorocha who has never hidden his disaffection with the government’s earlier inability to settle pension claims over the last few months, heaved a sigh of relief after the last verification exercise threw up some useful leads on the fraud that has held up pension funds for many years.
The government had battled to come to terms with a huge and obviously inflated pension liability in the State, which saw the State pension wage bill rising to over 1.5 Billion Naira monthly.
Earlier attempts at bursting the cartel that is responsible for this mindless racketeering failed to produce results, as the situation appeared intractable.
However, the Governor was unrelenting in his bid to ensure that our senior citizens are not deprived of their rights, he set up another committee to investigate and verify all pension claims as well as unearth real and ghost pensioners, while determining how the State came about a higher pension bill than every other State in the Federation.
This committee eventually succeeded in unearthing how about 650 Million Naira pension fund was been stolen monthly by about 30 staff of the Imo State pension board. These 30 criminal suspects have been handed over to their Directorate of State Services for further investigation and possible prosecution.
Meantime, thousands of pensioners in the State have continued to shower the Governor with prayers of good things and more blessings as they receive their cheques in full for all the pension arrears owed them.
