THE Zamfara House of Assembly has directed the state’s Head of Civil Service to return N742,267,914.05 repatriated from the Pension Funds Administrators (PFAs) to both serving and retired workers. The Speaker of the House, Alhaji Muazu Nasiru Magarya, gave the directive at the resumption of Thursday’s plenary in Gusau, Zamfara.
Magarya directed the Head of Service, Alhaji Kabiru Muhammad Gayari, to constitute a committee to pay both serving and retired workers their dues from the N742,267,914.05 repatriated from different PFAs.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the funds deducted from workers under the Pension Contributory Scheme was recovered by a Consulting firm, Royal Rock Consult limited, in 2021.
The lawmakers also directed the state commissioners for Finance and his counterpart in the Ministry of Local Government Affairs, Alhaji Sufiyanu Bashir Yuguda, and Abubakar Sarkin Fawa Dambo, respectively, to effect the payment of all outstanding consultation fees owed the firm.
Royal Rocks Consult had recovered over N2.7 billion meant for the state workers from 11 PFAs contracted to manage the state contributory pension scheme by the previous administration in the state.
The Assembly’s decision followed a motion brought by Nasiru Bello, deputy house leader and chairman House ad-hoc Committee on Investigation of Pension Fund Administrators. In the motion, Bello wondered why the State Head of Service failed to constitute the committee of stakeholders to pay the state workers their entitlements as earlier directed by the lawmakers.
He said that out of the N2.7 billion recovered, over N761,797,443.36 had been refunded to individual employees bank accounts. According to him, 17,780 government employees had so far been refunded, while over N742,267,914.05 had been successfully repatriated to the reconciliation account of the Head of Service.
Bello said that the amount was the outstanding pension funds meant to be paid 22,211 verified Retirement Saving Accounts (RSAs) holders. He prayed the House to pass a resolution compelling the Head of Service to constitute a committee with critical stakeholders from the Assembly, Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Ministry of Finance, its Local Government counterparts and the Nigerian Union of Pensioners, NUP, to refund both serving and retired government workers their money with relative ease.
The committee chairman urged his colleagues to compel the state head of service to constitute the committee and also order the state ministries of finance and local government affairs to pay the outstanding fees owed the consulting firm Royal Rocks for a job well done.
Meanwhile, the committee on Lands, Housing and Town planning, headed by Alhaji Shafi’u Wanke, had embarked on oversight functions in Gusau and Kaura Namoda towns to investigate alleged land Racketeering and illegal allocation of shops in Government Reserved Areas. (NAN)
