Borno Inaugurates Committee on Pension Payment
Gov. Babagana Zulum of Borno State on Monday inaugurated a 15 member committee for the verification of Local Government pensioners and payment of gratuities.
Inaugurating the committee in Maiduguri, Zulum said the committee was necessary to institute a culture of accountability and transparency in financial activities at the local government level.
Zulum said, It has become a matter of strategic necessity to ensure that its overall financial obligations are handled in accordance with laid down regulatory guidelines and extant financial standards.
The governor said that as part of his commitment to make the local government more functional as a veritable avenue for rural transformation, his administration had initiated some far-reaching measures.
The measures included the setting up of verification and biometric data-capture committees; one on Local Government Staff and the other on Primary School Teachers. The committees’ final reports would give the administration the needed impetus to reinvigorate and resuscitate the Local Government System.
He said, “Having observed some worrisome lapses as well as procedural and administrative challenges in the payment of Local Government Pensioners, we decided to constitute this Committee to primarily address these challenges and proffer implementable measures to forestall pitfalls and other unsavoury issues associated with the system.”
“The Committee is therefore an integral part of our overall strategies to reform the local government system and our undeniable commitment towards achieving the preset goals and objectives in the re-invigoration and resuscitation of the entire local government system.”
“The primary objective of the Committee is to determine the actual number of genuine local government pensioners and the precise co-relation between the total number of pensioners and cumulative amount of money being paid to them as their pension entitlements.”
“Meanwhile, the Committee is to pay gratuities of pensioners that were hitherto entitled and cleared for payment on sustainable basis without further delay, while the verification exercise is on-going,”
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the committee has Ibrahim Lawalam, a former Auditor General of the Local Government as Chairman, while Tahiru Shettima, Permanent Secretary, Monitoring, Evaluation and Special Projects, will serve as Secretary.
Representatives of the Local Government Service Commission, Ministry for Local Government and Emirates Affairs, and National Union of Local Government Employees are also members of the committee which has three months to submit its report.