The Rivers State Local Government Service Commission has directed the 23 local government council, in the state to set up pension units in their respective areas.
Chairman of the commission, Chief Azubuike Nmerukini, who handed down the directive during a meeting in his office said that the move was to ease the hardship encountered by retiring civil servants of the unified local government service.
Chief Nmerukini said that, the commission would no longer accept a situation where retiring civil servants of the commission spend several months awaiting their payment without success and advised retiring staff to always submit their documents three months before retirement to facilitate early payments of their benefits.
The commission chairman, however, observed with regrets the high rate of falsification of records by staff, especially age declaration.
In his words, “some staff unknown to them have changed their age to the point that their children are now older than them.”
He also charged all staff of the commission to bring their original documents or their papers will not be processed for payment of their gratuity and pension.
Chief Nmerukini said that to facilitate the process, a retirement sub-committee had been set up in the commission.
The state president of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Barrister Franklyn Ajunwo, assured of the union’s preparedness to co-operate with the commission to ease the difficulty faced by retiring staff.