No more excuses – Dogara
By Joshua Egbodo
Abuja
Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, and her Budget and National Planning counterpart, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, have blamed the inability of the federal government to meet up its pension liabilities on shortfall for same in the nation’s annual budget.
But, Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has tasked the executive to ensure that all backlog of pension payments are made promptly, adding that no excuse will be accepted for failure to do so.
The two ministers appeared before the House of Representatives at plenary yesterday, following its resolution of Thursday, March, 30, 2017, inviting them to explain what efforts were being made to offset the federal government’s arrears of pension liabilities, said to be standing at over N200 billion.
Udoma, who was the first to speak, admitted that there were challenges, which President Muhammadu Buhari had directed them to urgently address, and possibly make adequate provisions in the 2017 budget, to offset the arrears, sequel to which a committee headed by the finance minister had been put in place to meet with all relevant pension agencies.
“The numbers will be reconciled, and if there is any need to change it in the 2017 budget, you would be approached on this. We have limited resources, so part of what the committee is going to look at is possible and creative ways of raising funds,” Udoma told the House.
On her part, Adeosun explained that over the years, PenCom has analysed what is needed to offset the arrears, and that “one year budget can’t solve the whole issue.
“Prior to what we paid yesterday (Wednesday), the last request of 2014 was cash-backed in 2017, just yesterday (Wednesday).”
“Yesterday (Wednesday), we released the sum of N42bn to clear all the outstanding. A lot of progress has been made. This is not just a federal government problem. There are also problems with state governments.”
The session turned mildly dramatic, when a member, Ali Madaki, took on the ministers, that “what we expected from the two ministers was to give us full briefing on the pension fund administration.”
“What we got from the two ministers is a passive comment. Our government has been in power for about two years. You can’t come here and start telling us stories of 2014. What are you doing now?”
Dogara, while rounding off the session, said he had been assured by President Buhari that the matter would be dealt with, and that he had no reason to doubt him.
“When the president speaks, he speaks from his heart not from his head. We believe that the issue will be resolved. When the president made a commitment that he would pay money to states to pay backlog of salary and pension, it happened, even though we are in a state of recession.
“I don’t know how they got the money to bail out states, but wherever they got the money, that’s where we are going to get the money to settle pension. The message the House will be sending to the president is that we will meet him on the discussion here. We have taken his words to the bank,” he said, before discharging the ministers.
