The Imo State governor, Hope Uzodinma, has announced the immediate payment of pension for the month of March.
The State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Declan Emelumba, said this in a chat with newsmen in Owerri, the Imo State Capital.
He said the governor gave the directive after a closed door meeting with the leadership of the pensioners association in the state.
According to him, the governor warned that his government would insist on paying salaries and pensions only to those legitimately entitled to it and not to ghost workers and pensioners.
Governor Uzodinma added that the state government saved N300 Million pensioners fund by sacking the consultant contracted by the immediate past administration of Chief Emeka Ihedioha.
“The government has saved over N300 Million in pension payments through detailed scrutiny of the payroll, which exposed a lot of leakages and ghost recipients in the system”, he said.
According to the Information Commissioner, “the chairman of the state association of pensioners, Dr Josiah Ugochukwu, agreed with the governor that the use of a consultant for pension payments by the sacked administration of Ihedioha was a conduit pipe for fraud. He said his association opposed it but then government paid deaf ears”.
Chief Ugochukwu said the state government discovered that the use of a consultant was a ploy to defraud the state by opening avenues for questionable payments of over half a billion Naira to an external consultant who he said by law cannot be audited by the state attorney general.
“The governor sees pension money as blood money because it is money saved from the sweat of elder statesmen who sacrificed their youth to serve the state, so he is determined to ensure that only those entitled to pensions get paid”, he added.
Signaturetv.org/Chukwudi