Pensioners in Kogi state are apprehensive as government may have resorted to selective payment of pensions for the month of March, 2022.
The development started on Wednesday, 6th April, 2022 (afternoon), when a handful of pensioners especially those banking with First Bank, UBA and Union Bank reportedly got their alerts for payment of their March pensions while majority are yet to be paid.
The difficult situation that had inflicted pains on the senior citizens, started in February, 2022 when they were paid 70% of their pensions instead of 100% and to worsen it now, the selective payment for the month of March.
Our Correspondent gathered that the state government may have ran out of funds after paying the civil servants.
Other possible reason adduced for shortage of funds may not be unconnected with the elaborate ceremony for the declaration of the Presidential ambition of the governor last Saturday.
The worst scenario is the usual lack of openness of the state government, as no word of explanation has come from the Director General (DG), in charge of pension, Mrs. Mariam Ahmed.
A visit to her office by Our Correspondent at the State Secretariat yielded no fruitful result as she was said to be attending a meeting.
She also did not pick calls made to her, neither did she acknowledge text messages.
Further investigation showed that those that were selected for payment are in gross minority of pensioners in the state.
Speaking to our correspondent a few days ago on Mobile phone, the state Commissioner of Finance, Asiwaju Asiru Idris said that government was not owing pensioners and attributed the current difficulty of payments to network failure assuring that all pensioners will be paid.
According to the Commissioner “the delay in payment of March pensions is due to logistics problems of transferring the money from Access Bank to UBA.