Some retirees and families of deceased civil servants in Lagos State have lamented the delay in the processing of pensions and gratuities meant for them and their deceased breadwinners.
Some of the affected persons who spoke with The PUNCH on Monday said that since 2021 and 2022, when they retired or when their breadwinner died, they had not been paid the required entitlement by the Lagos State Pension Commission.
The commission’s Director General, Babalola Obilana, has, however, faulted the claim, noting that LASPEC had been facilitating prompt payment for pensioners.
Mrs Kehinde Adeoye, 70, who worked at the Surulere Local Government before she retired, said she had been going to the pension office in Lagos to no avail.
“I left service in 2022 and I have been coming here, but they keep telling me to be patient, that they will pay me, and that they will call me. I gave them my phone number and everything, yet they didn’t call me or do anything. They didn’t call me since then. I’m here again, they said I should be patient that our names are on the list. It’s just as if they are deceiving someone. I have brought everything they asked for,” the septuagenarian lamented in an interview with our correspondent.
A family member of a deceased worker, Funke Awotoye, said her husband worked at the Apapa Local Government, but she had yet to get his gratuity since 2021.
“It’s my late husband’s pension. Since February 2021, I’ve been to LASPEC. We submitted everything. They even asked us to do a Letter of Administration and everything is already. I’m still here now and they are just telling me to wait. It’s been a long time I’ve been coming. Since 2023, I’ve been going to LASPEC.
“My husband’s name is Sikiru Awotoye. I don’t know how much they want to give him, but they said they will work it out,” the wife said.
Adijatu Ismaheel, who is also the wife of a late worker, said, “The pension is for my late husband. He died three years to his retirement from service. I have done all the processing. The challenge is that they are not answering me. He died in 2021. I have been processing it since then.”
A son of one of the retirees, identified simply as Shina, said his aged mother was expecting around N1.2m and lamented the delay in the processing.
Shina said, “They are delaying the processing of the fund. It is having a detrimental effect on me. It’s taking my time and money. My mom is 70, and moving her around for her pension doesn’t sit well with me. The fact remains that the processing should not be this slow if there’s no deficiency in the finances and accounting unit. I trust the Lagos State Government to have dropped the bonds of retirees of over three years.”
When contacted, the Director General of LASPEC, Babalola Obilana, said the claim that the affected persons were not attended to was not true.
The DG said, “If I can get the specific names, I can tell. But that’s not true; that information is not correct. We still made some payments of about N1.5bn in April. And people who retired in December and some who retired in January of this year have been paid. So, that information is not true. So, if you come to my office with the names of those people, we will show you whether their files are here or not. Some will not tell you the truth. I’m in the office, I operate an open-door policy. If anybody has an issue, they can come to my office.”
