ON THE PLIGHT OF PENSIONERS!
As a counterpart to last week’s article on President Trump, I had intended this week to write on the exit of Obama (especially, despite his enormous global goodwill, he was completely ‘defeated’ by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – perhaps another day). But since the Hausa say “Sawun Giwa Ya Take Na Rakumi” (literally, ‘The […]
As a counterpart to last week’s article on President Trump, I had intended this week to write on the exit of Obama (especially, despite his enormous global goodwill, he was completely ‘defeated’ by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – perhaps another day). But since the Hausa say “Sawun Giwa Ya Take Na Rakumi” (literally, ‘The Elephant’s Footprint Obliterates the Camel’s or, ‘Small Matters Vanish When Bigger Ones Appear’), my attention was drawn to the plight pensioners by a Daily Trust story on elder statesman Alhaji Hassan Lemu whose pension stopped six years ago. Because of the story, Government was literally ‘forced’ to visit the old man – but for the effort of journalists highlighting his plight, it wouldn’t have been done. Now, if workers who are still in service complain of late or reduced wages, what can pensioners do? Knowing I will one day join this mass of sufferers, I asked my good friend and brother who is already a pensioner, Dr. Ibrahim Nuruddeen Muhammad ([email protected]), to explain and lament their (our) plight:
The Prophet of Islam Muhammad, upon whom be peace, as recorded in Sahih Bukhari (Hadith 2896), said: “You are assisted and granted sustenance/provision on account of the weak among you.”
It is said that no one knows where the shoe pinches more than the person wearing it. As an Accounting teacher, I used to discuss in class with my students issues pertaining to pension and gratuity of retired public servants in the country. We thought that by making retirement benefits among the first charges against the Consolidated Revenue Fund, the Nigerian Constitution places great priority on the promotion of retired public officers’ welfare.
However, everyday reality seems to prove that our thinking was wrong. Media and eye-witness accounts of the hardships facing pensioners and their families, in addition to my personal experience after having joined the retirees club, show that there is a wide gap between the constitutional provision on pension and its implementation by political office-holders in reality.
Many of these pensioners owed by governments all over the country have unmet needs, ranging from housing, education and health…Alas! Many pensioners die while waiting for the payment of their benefits. The worst thing is that sometimes even the survivors of a deceased pensioner are subjected to unwarranted hardships before getting their predecessor’s benefits. In the meantime, however, governments seem to give higher priority to funding projects that seek, from all indications, to draw popular acclaim and political prestige than goodwill from disempowered pensioners.
While such projects may have certain contributions in promoting public welfare, the priority given to them appears disproportional compared to other urgent needs. The question is: should projects costing fortunes of public funds be given priority over the welfare of pensioners wallowing in penury, ill-health and misery? Certainly, compassionate political leaders will not allow the old and frail (sometimes including their own parents) to suffer. This is more so when one considers that the provisions we are granted (even federal allocations, bail-out and debt refunds) are on account of the weak among us, according to the prophetic saying at the beginning of this essay.
To date, different levels of successes should have been achieved by the three tiers of government in terms of identifying and blocking drain-pipes of public funds through ghost workers, over-invoicing, uncompleted contracts for which full payments have been made, or even outright embezzlement. To control much of public sector corruption, analysts and commentators seem to focus only on current workers in government and pay little attention to public employees who are no-longer in service, i.e. retirees or pensioners. Doing this is to forget that the motivations for whatever patterns of behaviour a person exhibits today may have been established long-ago in the past. In this context, the causes of corrupt practices observed today may be traced to their antecedents in the feelings of insecurity public servants might have developed at some time early in their civil service careers.
One of the attractions of the public service is the assurance of security of tenure and the expectation of benefits on retirement. That assurance comes in the form of the promise of pension and gratuity for public workers who retire after devoting the best part of their useful life to the state. The promise gives public employees a sense of security that in old age, when they become frail and weak, a welfare package is there for them to fall back on. This may be one of the reasons why public servants hardly take life assurance policies believing that, on retirement, government will live up to its promise, and up to their expectations, and pay them their entitlements as and when due.
Sadly, in most cases, governments fail to deliver on their promises and retirees face various problems and untold hardships in terms of getting their benefits. The specter of old and weak retirees queuing to get their benefits, even as some die without collecting, may send fears to serving public employees as to make them feel that on retirement they will also be in similar predicaments. So to forestall that from happening to them, some may think that they need to resort to enriching themselves from public coffers while in office. Though this thinking is skewed and cannot be a justification for perpetrating corruption, the government ought to consider ensuring the welfare of retirees as a mechanism to dissuade employees in active service from planning for their retirement through corrupt practices.
The lot of pensioners in Nigeria leaves much to be desired, despite the introduction of the 2004 Pension Reform Act. At present, many state governments owe staggering amounts to pensioners in terms of pension arrears, death benefits and gratuities.
Scarcity of public resources makes it essential to balance resource-utilisation to ensure that the most pressing needs of the public are met and that should be done with the ultimate objective of assuring the public receives value for money from government spending. Indeed, from the perspective of public financial management (PFM) principles, the need for an effective allocation of governmental resources to different sectors, programmes and projects cannot be over-emphasized. This ought to be within a realistic budget and in a manner that ensures overall developmental outcomes.
But realistic budgeting is one thing, prioritisation is another. Public spending priorities should not be seen to be only on embarking on grand projects which may become white elephants. Thus, the executive and legislative arms of government should guarantee the monitoring and prevention of extra-budgetary expenditures with consideration for the moral responsibility political leaders owe to support the weak and the infirm like the senior citizens in the state. In other words, there must be budget discipline.
Additionally, political office-holders should live up to their moral teachings and also implement the constitutional provision which places pension benefit on the same footing with remuneration of top-ranking public officers like the President, the Chief Justice of the Federation and State Governors. Mere subscription to moral precepts or lip service to constitutional provisions are inadequate and public officers are required to “walk the talk,” such that their actions reflect, to the letter, the spirit of their faiths and give due regard to our collective aspirations as provided for in the Constitution.
Senior citizens deserve to get their benefits paid, not as a favour but as a matter of right. An “Allah Ya isa” (God suffices for me) from a pensioner is enough to kill any political ambition or project. So, politicians, don’t let the weak and the vulnerable utter “Allah Ya isa”.