A former National Vice President of the Radio Television Theatre and Arts Workers Union of Nigeria-Rattawu in the South South zone, Rt. Comrade Christian Saro Ganale says the proposed Staff / Pensioners verification Exercise by the Sole Administrator of Rivers State is another round of wasting the funds of Rivers State Government and inflicting hard suffering on civil servants and pensioners in the state.
Rt. Comrade Saro-Ganale said that the Sole administrator lacks such powers as an interim administrator to meddle in an exercise that’s the core mandate or responsibility of an elected Governor.
The Ogoni-born Broadcaster and Trade Unionist stated this while speaking to Journalists at the end of the National Delegates Conference of Rattawu held in Gombe state.
Rt. Comrade Saro-Ganale, who served as the Rivers State chairman of Rattawu between 2002 and 2009, stated that pensioners who retired from the Service of the Rivers State Government are paid directly into their bank accounts, not through cash payments as claimed by the Sole Administrator.
The former South South National Vice President of Rattawu also dismissed claims by the Rivers State Sole Administrator that there were no authentic records of pensioners in the state, challenging him that if such records were not there, how were the pensioners paid in the past years?
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He called on the Sole administrator of Rivers state to reverse his decision on this exercise and that of the implementation of the contributing Pension scheme considering the hard suffering the exercise will cause the aged pensioners and civil servants and stressed that the emergency rule in RIvers State is to restore peace and not to inflict hardship on pensioners and civil servants in Rivers state.
Rt. Comrade Saro- Ganale also expressed disappointment with Labour Leaders, especially the Nigeria Labour Congress in Rivers state, to agree on an exercise that will inflict more hardship on aged pensioners in the stat,e whose monthly pension for some of them are less than 50’000.
According to him, there’s no pensioner or civil servant paid by the Rivers State Government that didn’t go through the Biometric screening exercise before the salary payment and wondered why the sole administrator really wanted the verification Exercise if not to punish the civil servants and pensioners in the state.
