Date: 2016-09-21

Kwara State servants employed after 1987 will soon be migrated into the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) with about N145 million remitted monthly.

The Senior Special Assistant on Media and Communication to Kwara State Governor, Dr Muyideen Oluwakorede told journalists that workers employed before 1987 will continue in the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS).

The state pays pensioners under the old scheme monthly pension of about N443 million. The government has "tentatively" estimated about N1.6 billion to be paid as contribution into the CPS for all pension arrears.

According to Oluwakorede, Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed believes that allowing workers from 1987 to migrate to the CPS will ensure they have enough pension contribution remitted into their Retirement Savings Account (RSA). Ahmed said the state would have joined the CPS before now but it met a lot of resistance from the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).

He said: "What we plan to do is that anybody who was employed after 1987 will be migrated into the CPS. Anybody who was employed before that time will continue in the normal scheme. This is because if you take them earlier, their contributions will not be enough and that is why we are going back to 1987.

"Presently, our current monthly pension under the DBS is about N443 million, which will continue on the side and then the monthly commitment that we will have to now do when we go into the CPS will be about N145 million. The state government is currently looking at all the figures that we have to pay altogether and be sure that the state can afford it.

"We are looking at the cost implications on our finances, not forgetting that the state allocations dropped considerably in the past. Although the state allocation is starting to rise, it has not risen to what it used to be.

Migrating the pensioners needs a lot of planning because they have already retired. We have calculated it and the state is trying to correct some paper works but it is certain that we will join the new scheme." He said that pensioners and the workers refused to join the CPS.

"We couldn't compel them to join the scheme but we gradually made them understand reasons why the workers should join the new scheme. We made them understand that there are benefits for workers and the state as a whole to enjoy under the scheme like the pension fund, which the Federal Government has pulled resources from for infrastructure.

We explained to them that states that are not under the scheme are not eligible to pull resources or borrow from the fund for infrastructure development. We have also started sensitising workers to let them know why we have to take this step now," Ahmed added.