By Muhammad Alabira, Dutse
Lack of new employment over the last few years in to the civil service has crippled the financial strenght of the Jigawa state and local government contributory pension scheme.
This was disclosed on Monday by the chairman of the committee of experts constituted by the Jigawa state government to investigate the financial strenght of the scheme, Alhaji Mustapha Aminu.
The chairman stated this while briefing newsmen shortly after the committee submitted it’s report to Governor Umar Namadi in government house Dutse.
“Employment gap has seriously affected the Jigawa state and local contributory pension scheme over the years.
“Civil servants are retiring every year, while some are dying yet there are no employment of new staff to replace them.
“If those contributing to the scheme are not being employed for years, the scheme will shrink financially for lack of enough funds”, Aminu stressed.
He explained further that the main problem mitigating against the scheme is the lack of employment, non-remittance of about N1.2 billion by the local government into the scheme.
He stated that another problem is lack of deduction at source because of the law put in place by the Intelligence Committee on salary.
The chairman also debunked rumours making the rounds that the funds has been tempered with by some officials of the past government.
“No single Kobo was removed from the coffers of the scheme as rumoured.
“Before you withdraw a dime from the scheme, you have to get the approval of the Pension Commission, Debt Management Office at the Presidency and Security and Exchange Commission, so it has a solidified and fortified security measures around it”, he concluded.
Also the Executive Secretary of the Scheme, Alhaji Kamisu Musa said they have confidence on the members of the committee of experts that handled the job.
“More money is being paid to retirees, while less is being contributed into the scheme because there was no employment.
“When we came in, we were paying just N160 million to retirees who were just 6,000 then, but now we paid over N535 Million to over 1600 retirees”, Musa added.