A total of N8billion had been paid by the Oyo State Government as gratuity to 3,783 retirees under the state’s civil service, judicial service, teaching, non-teaching, as well as the local government service commission and primary school up till October, 2020.
Making the disclosure in separate interviews with journalists in Ibadan, on Monday were the Commissioner for Establishment and Training, Prof. Daud Sangodoyin, and the Chairman, Local Government Service Commission and Local Government Staff Pension Board, Aderemi Ayodele.
The Commissioner said the process of writing to go into retirement and getting issued pension authority certificate as well as being eligible to be paid gratuity was foolproof.
Sangodoyin stressed that 1,304 among the retirees that belonged to the teaching, non-teaching, civil servants and those from the judicial service commission had been paid till October with N3.6billion.
He said, “We have paid 1,304 retirees their gratuities from June 2019 to October 2020 and the amount paid is three billion and sixty million naira. The beneficiaries are in the categories of teaching, non-teaching, the judicial service commission and the civil servants.
“The process is simple, you write that you are retiring and follow the due process till the papers get to the Auditor-General’s office and it gets back to the Ministry of Establishment where the pension authority certificate will be issued to the recipient, then the person is said to be eligible and on queue for his or her gratuity.
“There is no need for anybody to approach a middleman to help. It is first come, first served. We have reeled out helpline numbers for anyone that has questions or has seen or heard something against the laid down rules of engagement, the numbers are 08056904055, 07087647032.”
According to Ayodele, the pension board had been the flagship of the present administration as major promises made by Governor Seyi Makinde to workers and retirees during the campaign period were met.
He said the total of N4,930,689,626.38 had been paid to 2,459 retirees till October 2020.
“The pension board has been the flagship of this administration because it has been the area where the current government has been extremely diligent in living up to its promises. Governor Makinde promised during campaign that he would be paying workers salaries and pensions of retirees by the 25th of every month, while also seeing a way of settling the backlog of unpaid gratuities that ran into billions during the last administration, I want to thank God for the governor for living up to expectation.
“The governor pointedly told us that no retiree of Oyo State must die before his or her entitlement is paid to him or her. That is why we have evolved measures to give a certain percentage to retirees that is certified to be seriously sick and is waiting to be paid gratuity among the waiting list,” he said.
On workers training, Sangodoyin said the state governmen released the sum of N47million for the first phase of training for workers in different categories in the areas of business writing, expanded Microsoft training, leadership skills training among others.
He maintained that the government had vowed to continuously measure the impact of the training on the system and the workforce.
