The action is however against the provisions of Section 11 sub section 3 (b) of the Pension Reform Act (2014) which clearly states that: “the employer shall not later than seven (7) working days from the day the employee is paid his salary remit an amount comprising the employee’s contribution under paragraph ‘A’ of this sub-section and the employer’s contribution to the Pension Fund Custodian specified by the Pension Fund Administrator or the employee himself.”
The Lagos State Government has refused to remit contributory pensions, cooperative and loan deductions of the state government workers for the last two months, SaharaReporters has gathered.
The action is however against the provisions of Section 11 sub section 3 (b) of the Pension Reform Act (2014) which clearly states that: “the employer shall not later than seven (7) working days from the day the employee is paid his salary remit an amount comprising the employee’s contribution under paragraph ‘A’ of this sub-section and the employer’s contribution to the Pension Fund Custodian specified by the Pension Fund Administrator or the employee himself.”
A source told SaharaReporters on Thursday that the Lagos government had stopped remitting pension contributions into workers’ Retirement Savings Accounts with their respective Pension Fund Administrators.
He added that cooperative deductions were also not remitted by the government, making most of loan applications to be rejected.
“Most of the state governors now used pension monthly deduction from staff salary for their political ambition, especially Lagos state government,” the source told SaharaReporters.
“For over two months, the Lagos state government did not remit the pension deducted to pencom. I applied for a loan as a worker with the Lagos State Government, I couldn’t get the loan.
“I and others were told that the money was borrowed by politicians, and who could have done that if not the state government? We need to pay our bills now but we couldn’t. Why would the poor suffer this much?”
“I work under the state Ministry of Health and I have been working for 9 years. I’m not the only one affected sir. It was one of the cooperative society staff that gave us the information about why we didn’t get the loan we applied for, and that the cooperative management can not divulge the information.
“Meanwhile, I noticed that I haven’t received any alert from pension company that the Lagos state government have remitted the pension deducted from my salary for 2 months now.
“What need is for them to release the money belonging to cooperatives to them, and stop borrowing from pension deducted from staff salaries.”
The state government has yet to officially react to the complaints by the workers trying to access loans from their savings but who could not.