Ponnle Said That Lagos Is Dedicated To Paying Pensioners’ Pensions On Schedule.
Mrs. Ajibola Ponnle, the Lagos State Commissioner for Establishments, Training, and Pensions, has reaffirmed the state government’s commitment to paying retirees’ pensions on time via the different Pension Fund Administrators.
In a statement to the media yesterday, Ponnle criticized a recent publication—not The Guardian—that claimed the government of Lagos State had missed payments in October, November, and December 2022, calling the information false and misleading and noting that, according to the National Pension Commission’s submission, Lagos was still the most compliant state in the federation.
According to this claim, the LASPEC paid the accumulated rights of 288 retirees in the amount of N1.062 billion on October 14, 2022, and 754 retirees in the amount of N2.54 billion in December 2022.
“The government paid accrued rights of N11.4 billion to 3,480 retirees in 2022 through the Lagos State Pension Commission (LASPEC), the agency responsible for the coordination and administration of all pension matters in the state, and a total of N48.3 billion to 13,142 retirees since the start of this administration,” she said.
The government of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, according to Ms. Ponnle, has always operated in line with its contractual commitments and has never broken its promises to its pensioners, whom it treated extremely seriously.
The National Pension Commission recognized the state as the most compliant with the program in its quarterly evaluation report on the status of the contributory Pension System (CPS) implementation in the states.
The Lagos State government raised the employers’ part of the 7.5% to 10% monthly pension payments to workers’ retirement savings accounts when Mr. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu was in office. The state government has transferred N13.7 billion for mainstream staff since January 2022, N3.18 billion for local council employees, and N13.319 billion for state universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) personnel.
Also, the state government continues to provide all of its workers with life insurance coverage equal to 300 percent of their annual salary. The Lagos State administration has worked hard to guarantee that pension responsibilities are consistently paid in accordance with the goals of the Contributory Pension Plan.
Several states have even visited us to study how we handle our pension. In terms of public service, we are at the forefront of best practices in pension administration. Hence, if we pay at the rate of between N1 billion and N1.5 billion per month, the outstanding N9 billion backlogs of pension would be completely cleared in less than a year, she said.
