National Assembly has revealed that it was battling the Federal Government to clear the 33 per cent arrears of pension funds owed pensioners, mainly those under the Defined Benefit Pension Scheme.
Chairman of House of Representatives Committee on Pensions, Hassan Shekerau, disclosed this in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, yesterday at the pre-retirement verification and enrolment exercise organised by the National Pension Commission for Federal Government employees under the Contributory Pension Scheme.
Speaking, at the occasion, the lawmaker noted that since 2010 when the agreement of the 33 percemt arrears was reached for the payment of the pensioners, many of them have not been paid.
He said: “If PenCom is able to know the number of those that are to retire and then the amount of money, they will put it in their budgetary provision, and when it gets to the National Assembly, we will approve. But one thing is for it to be provided in the budget and another thing for the executive to release the money.
“That is why we are having the challenges. As a committee, we have been battling, we have been pressurising the federal executive to release this money to pensioners, especially those who are under the Contributory Pension Scheme and those who are under the Defined Benefit Scheme.
“You know that under the Define Benefit Scheme, we have the challenges of the payment of the 33 percent arrears, which is still on.”
