Some retired permanent secretaries and other civil servants in Cross River State have alleged that they are being pressurised by some officials in the accountant general’s office to pay N200,000 each before their pensions and gratuities are processed.
A group of retired permanent Secretaries is said to have concluded arrangements to take the matter before the Industrial Arbitration Court in Calabar.
For fear of persecution and denial of their rights, the retirees have pleaded not to be named.
They lamented that they cannot even feed or pay their bills and so could not raise such amount to pay those handling their files in the attorney general’s office.
“Certain officials in the accountant general’s office have mounted pressure on many of us to cough out as much as N200,000 before our gratuities are paid. We are all retirees. How many of us can afford such staggering demands?
“However, we the former permanent secretaries, will approach the industrial court to help us adjudicate on our entitlements,” one of them told journalists.
Reacting, the accountant general of the state, Mr Joseph Adie, said he had been in office for three years and had no knowledge of such act by persons said to be his staff.
He pleaded that clues be given to him to enable him get culprits. He disclosed that the state had cleared the inherited backlog of 2013 and part of 2014 pensions and gratuities, adding that N200 million was usually set aside for issues of pensions and gratuities per month due to very low federal allocation and IGR.
“I want to assure I am not aware of such demand. I doubt that such can happen here. Nobody has told me that there is demand on pensioners to pay anything not even a dime before they get paid.
“It is a very grievous matter to ask retirees and pensioners to begin to pay monies for their gratuities. It is an act of wickedness to say that he least. I will be the last person to be a partaker of such demand.
“As we speak, we have cleared gratuities for 2013, and we have paid up to February in 2014.”
