Regular payment of Workers' salaries and pensions, Ikpeazu's commitment - Aham Ukoh

 The commissioner for Finance Abia state, Dr. Aham Ukoh disclosed that all civil servants and pensioners in the State have been paid. According to him, this was to

show the commitment of the Governor, Okezie Ikpeazu concerning the welfare of all state workers. The honorable commissioner promised government consistency in the payment of workers’ salaries and pensions.

            Speaking on the Biometric Verification exercise carried out by the state government, Aham Ukoh stressed that the outcome of the exercise was quite revealing as they were able to remove from their payroll of pensioners a total of 2,874 irregular names which translated to about #189,000,000 per month, bringing it to a total of 2.3bn annually. According to him, being able to save that huge sum of money was due to the biometric verification they carried out. That exercise he maintained, helped in ensuring that the payment of pension become quite regular.

The commissioner also pointed out that they made sure to bring on board some pensioners that retired in the last couple of months. But prior to the exercise, they had workers that retired for over 2 years or more that were not in the pension payroll and due to the biometric verification, their data has been updated in a manner that immediately a civil servant retires, he/she automatically gets into the payroll scheme by the next month and then starts receiving their pension.

            He further disclosed that the implication to us as a state means that it’s no longer important for anyone to struggle to manipulate getting a contract after retirement or become afraid of retirement because your pensions will come, and that is an important plus and benefit of the biometric verification exercise that was carried out.

Aham Uko reiterated that the relationship between the state government and civil servants is quite cordial irrespective of the negative news being circulated. He went on to say that there will always be a few disgruntled people who may be sympathetic to the opposition and will never see anything good in what the governor is doing. He said, Abia state is up to date on the payment of workers and pensioners unlike some states that do not pay pensions and might still be owing salaries in arrears.

The Finance expert further explained that inasmuch as the monies available to the state government from the federation account and internal revenue has reduced, government still try to make sure that all pensioners go home with something. That is to show that the government is concerned and empathic towards the welfare of all state workers, and pleads for the understanding of the civil servants as they try to make their activities all inclusive so that the people can see the sincerity and purpose in all they are doing.

            ’’The grace of God and support, vision and objectives of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has sustained the state and payment of salaries since the evasion of the COVID-19 pandemic’’ he said.

‘’It is the desire of the governor that all government workers and pensioners be treated with dignity and paid their salaries and pensions at when due and all we do is in compliance with the directive of the governor to see that we put smiles on faces of Abia workers.