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?”
