Rivers State Pensioners Issue Ultimatum to the State Government over Unpaid Pensions.

Rivers State Pensioners have issued a one-week ultimatum to Rivers State Government to pay them all their pension entitlements or face a statewide-protest. The pensioners issued the ultimatum after their meeting at the Rivers State Secretariat, Port Harcourt.

Leader of the pensioners, Lucky Ati in an interview with newsmen said that if by Tuesday, November 5, 2019, nothing was done by the state government to pay them their outstanding allowances, they would occupy the streets of Port Harcourt.

Ati lamented that the government had released a budget of over N33m for pensioners yet nothing has happened, just as he noted that 4,000 retirees in the state had been suffering because of hardship. He added that some of their members were now dead in the course of their struggle to survive.

He said, “It is our right, we are not asking anything outside our right, we enter into a pensionable employment that says after 35 years of service or 60 years of age. They are meant to pay us our gratuity and prompt pension. Between now and Tuesday next week, if government do not do anything, we are going back to the streets. Out of 4,400 pensioners government only paid 800 persons despite carrying out series of biometric 4 months ago.”