Retirees under the contributory pension scheme have asked the National Assembly to include them in the Pension reform Act 2014 (Amendment) bill, 2022 now before it.
The new bill, due for second reading, seeks to make funds in the contributory pension scheme more accessible to pensioners by increasing the lump payment from 25 to 75 per cent.
It was sponsored by Senator Aliyu Wamako, representing Sokoto North under the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
However, the pensioners, under the aegis of the National Association of PENCOM Retirees, are asking that those of them that retired and were paid only 25 per cent be included in the proposed 75 per cent lump payment.
In a statement signed by the Interim Coordinator, Mr. Jude Owuamanam, and made available to newsmen in Owerri on Sunday, the pensioner said that it would amount to injustice if they were not paid the balance of 50 per cent.
According to them, some of them were paid peanuts as 25 per cent lump payment that could barely solve the basic needs after retirement.
Owuamanam said, “When some us retired, our entire contributions was so small that the 25 per cent lump payment amounted to nothing really. Some of us could not meet the basic needs after retirement. For instance, some of us were building retirement homes and had hoped to use the lump payment to complete it, but you find out that the money could not do much. What a retiree needed most is where to retire to and that is shelter.
“Again the monthly payment can hardly last for few days. But if we get enough lump payment, we can deploy to starting some business or any other use.
“We have more than N13 trillion in pension fund assets and it makes no sense that owners of this money live in penury while the pension fund administrators live big. They are using our money for their own business while we starve. We are therefore pleading that that not only the amendment be passed, we should also be included in the new bill,” the statement added.