The Ondo State Governor, Mr Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN, has disclosed that his administration has paid about N6 billion out of the arrears of gratuities inherited from the previous administration.
Akeredolu stated this yesterday when he received members of the National Pension Commission (PENCOM) that were led to his office by the National Commissioner, Clement Oyedele Akintola.
He said that his administration has continued to pay pensioners their monthly benefits and added that salaries of workers and arrears of gratuities are being paid in spite of paucity of funds.
He pledged that the state would continue to defray accumulated arrears of gratuities.
Akeredolu said that his administration has braved the odds to migrate workers who were employed from September 2014 to the new pension scheme.
He noted that the old scheme was bedeviled by encumbrances and burden and stressed that genuine efforts must be made to convince workers that the new Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) is far better than the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS), which was the old scheme.
“Our workers on the new scheme are expected to live a comfortable life devoid of any form of dependency after their successful retirement from active service,” he said.
Earlier on, Akintola commended the ‘Sunshine State’ for recording a giant stride in the implementation of the new CPS.
He charged the state to drive the implementation of the CPS with sufficient ICT infrastructure, adding that the scheme was designed to reduce pension burden on state governments.
THIS DAY