RSG Plays Defensive Over Unpaid Six Months' Pension Arrears

Governor Nyesom Wike

The Rivers State Government has appealed to pensioners in the state to exercise patience while efforts are on to pay them their allowances.
The state Commissioner for Finance, Dr. Fred Kpakol, told newsmen in an interview in Port Harcourt, last Friday, that the delay in paying pensioners was as a result of ongoing biometrics exercise.
Kpakol explained that the ICT department in charge of the biometrics exercise was still attending to pensioners who were not captured before the end of the exercise on September 16th.
The state finance commissioner explained that Governor Nyesom Wike holds pensioners in Rivers State in high esteem as senior citizens, and will not want to deny them their allowances.
Kpakol was reacting to complaints by the pensioners in Rivers State, who had alleged the non-payment of their six months’ pension allowances by the state government.
The state Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP), Festus Abibo, in a chat with newsmen in Port Harcourt, had alleged that pensioners were yet to be paid their pension allowances even after completing their biometric exercise.
Abibo said that Governor Nyesom Wike, during a recent meeting with the pensioners, had promised to pay allowances of the pensioners after the biometric exercise.
He also claimed that pensioners in the state were dying from medical and hunger-related problems as a result of non-payment of their six months’ pension allowances.