Pensioners from Kaduna Polytechnic have given three weeks to Federal government to pay them their gratuity or face mass action.
Addressing journalists yesterday, the Chairman of the Pensioners, Zacchaeus A Adedokun listed the problems of Kaduna Polytechnic retirees to include non-payment of gratuities, unsettled pension arrears and disparity in the payment of entitlement.
While crying out that 13 per cent pension increase and other arrears owed the beneficiaries between 2009 to 2013, are yet to be paid to them, the chairman regretted that a large number of them who retired from the services of Kaduna Polytechnic are yet to collect their gratuities.
The worse hit of what he called “barbaric action” of government is the former Acting Rector of the Polytechnic, Alhaji A S Aliyu who he said is yet to collect his gratuity since 2007 when he retired.
He said despite the fact that government is yet to pay them their entitlement, those of them who were leaving in quarters, have been forcefully ejected and “this development has subjected them to untold hardship with their family members”.
Similarly, the non-payment of enlistments in arrears has plunged and jeopardized “the life of our pensioners in the Polytechnic sector in so many ways”, the Chairman further lamented.
According to him, while many of the pensioners who fell sick had died “for lack of money”, others who were rushed to hospital are still on their sick bed “helplessly as they cannot access drug because of money.
“Almost all of us have been waiting for the areas of 33 percent to come and since it has not come, most of us have had their children withdrawn from school” due to their inability to pay their school fees and other academic requirements.
Among other things, he said is the non-payment of death benefits and pension arrears to the Next of Kilns. Many of them he also complained died while waiting to collect their spouse’s death benefits.
Speaking further, Adedokun remarked that “a clear observation revealed that Nigerian pensioners in Polytechnic are treated with ignominy and levity by the b. In general, government has no regard for the elder statement who have used their youthful strength to serve her.
“This situation is quite unfortunate “, he decried and gave the government three weeks within which to settle them.
Warning that they cannot afford to stomach their pains any more at the expense of their dependants, he threatened that “if at the end of the 3 weeks ultimatum government failed to address our problems, members would be mobilized to come out for embarrassing actions”.
