Police retirees decry poor management of pension scheme
[From ANIEKAN ANIEKAN, Calabar]
Retired police officers under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) have faulted the poor and inefficient management of the retirement programme in the country.
The retired officers disclosed this in a release made available in Calabar and signed by its 16 states Chapter Chairmen alongside four others.
The release is titled: “Retired Police Officers under Contributory Pension Scheme applauded no one”.
The group noted that Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) has denied police retirees of periodic increment of their monthly pension.
The group explained that the recently announced consequential adjustment of pension allowance by the federal government in line with section 173(3) of the constitution of the federal government of Nigeria as amended, did not include police retirees under CPS.
The release read in part: “No police retiree under CPS who has been exposed to the highest level of frustration and abandonment after suffering to keep the peace of this nation, will ever applaud those who have seized their terminal benefits to run a private profit making business in which the owners of the money (police retirees) are not stakeholders.
“it is unthinkable that police officers who enlisted into the force under Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS) and had served this nation up to pensionable years before the introduction of CPS could be coerced into a system that has robbed them of their entitlements.
”The group wondered why “Service Chiefs in other Agencies and the leadership of other organisations are working to better the living standard of their serving and retired personnel, while the police leadership is conspiring with the NPF Pensions Limited to cheat police retirees.”
“The approval of 2.5 percent by the President is not a favour done to anybody as it is the entitlement of the employee that is due the employee following the review of employer and the employee rate of contribution,” adding that, “the propaganda of 300 percent special gratuity for retired police officers awaiting the President’s approval is too old a story to be repeated after four years.”
They also frowned at the denial of the 300 percent annual basic salary and the 80 percent monthly basic salary as gratuity and monthly pension on retirement.
Conspiracy and enslavement of the highest order in Nigeria Police Force. That is why I will never allow my child to enlist into this kind of police. Suffer while in service and after retirement in the hands of police authority. The God we are serving with break their jaws and claws for our sake and our families