Oyo State Government on Monday has declared it has paid a sum of N8billion to 3,783 retirees in the state. Commissioner for Establishment and Training, Professor Daud Kehinde Sangodoyin and the Chairman of the Local Government Service Commission and Local Government Staff Pension Board, Hon. Aderemi Ayodele stated this at a different press briefing held separately in Ibadan, the state capital.
The two appointees stated that the payment were made between June 2019 and October 2020 to retirees under the state’s Civil service, Judicial service, Teaching and Non Teaching , Local Government Service Commission, and Primary school retirees
Sangodoyin said the retirees were paid their gratuity till the month of October this year and that the process of writing to go into retirement and getting issued pension authority certificate as well as being eligible to be paid gratuity was foolproof.
The Commissioner noted that the 1,304 retirees were from the state’s main stream workforce comprising of teaching, non-teaching, civil servants as well from the judicial service commission and were paid till October with Three Billion, Sixty Million Naira.
“We have paid 1,304 retirees their gratuities from June 2019 to October 2020 and the amount paid is Three Billion and Sixty Million Naira, the beneficiaries are in the categories of teaching, non-teaching, the judicial service commission and the civil servants”, he said.
He added that the process is simple, saying, ” you write that you are retiring and follow the due process till the papers get to the Auditor-General’s office and it gets back to the Ministry of Establishment where the pension authority certificate will be issued to the recipient, then the person is said to be eligible and on queue for his or her gratuity.”
“There is no need for anybody to approach a middleman to help, it is first come, first served, we have reeled out helpline numbers for anyone that has questions or has seen or heard something against the laid down rules of engagement, the numbers are: 08056904055 and 07087647032.”
The Chairman Oyo State Local Government Service Commission and Local Government Pension Board, Dr Aderemi Ayodele during his own briefing said the pension board has been the flagship of the present administration in the state and that N4,930,689,626.38 was paid to 2,459 retirees till October 2020.
“The pension board has been the flagship of this administration because it has been the area where the current government has been extremely diligent in living up to its promises, Governor Makinde promised during campaign that he would be paying workers salaries and pensions of retirees by the 25th of every month, while also seeing a way of settling the backlog of unpaid gratuities that ran into billions during the last administration”, Ayodele said.
“The governor pointedly told us that no retiree of Oyo State must die before his or her entitlement is paid to him or her, that is why we have evolved measures to give a certain percentage to retirees that is certified to be seriously sick and is waiting to be paid gratuity among the waiting list,” he added.
