…union demands immediate upward review of pension
…demand release of members NHS passbooks
By Emman Ovuakporie
If truly the rewards of teachers are situated in heaven, for pensioners at the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), their reward seems to be in hell as a pensioner is only entitled to N7,000.00 monthly while the serving Managing Director, Adebayo Somefun of the insurance scheme reportedly goes home with a whooping N3.3million monthly.
A simple calculation of the pensioner’s N7,000.00 monthly salary multiplied by 12 shows that a pensioner only earns N84,000.00 annually.
See starred portions of salary structures below:
A probe into this matter by TNG has revealed that for the past six years, the National Union of Pensioners, NUP, NSITF has written several letters to its management demanding for an upward review of their pension dues and release of their NHS passbooks.
Some of the letters made available to TNG reveal that the union had written letters begging for an upward review of their salaries and unremitted contributory pension contributions.
In one of such letters signed by Ahaam Mbazigwe, Chairman and Ayo Olutekunbi and sent earlier in the year response to NSITF letter, NUP said:
“For purpose of clarity and sincerity, we hereby respond to the various issues raised or reacted to or avoided by NSITF as ambiguously stated hereunder items 1 and 2 in our letter under reference which were lumped together by NSITF to make them ambiguous shall be treated separately for clarity and avoidance of imprecision.
See attached letter below:
A source privy to this development told TNG that despite the several letters sent to NSITF management nothing has been done by the government body to alleviate their problems.
He said'” we’ve written to the management several letters begging for attention to carry out an upward review of our hard-earned pension dues but no meaningful attention has been given to us.
“We are old men and women, some of us are still training our children in secondary schools and universities.
“Can you imagine that some of us still earn as little as N7k monthly while the serving MD goes home with over N3m monthly.
“It’s mind-boggling and as it’s we don’t even have our National Housing Scheme, NHS contribution passbooks kept by management so we can’t even access it.
“We have written several petitions, the last one was sent to the House of Representatives to help us fight this massive salary I’m balance and gross neglect by NSITF,” he added.
Meanwhile, reacting to the issues raised by the pensioners, the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund, NSITF in a mial sent directly to TNG promised its pensioners that the last two tranches of pension funds would be paid before the end of 2019.
The agency also promised to urgently look into the issue of National Housing Scheme, NHS passbooks to those involved [READ NSITF’s reaction in full]