We must recover N5.4 billion pension funds not remitted by ex-Governor Ganduje— Kano State Government

Kano Governor Abdullahi Ganduje
Every legal means will be deployed to retrieve over N5.4 Billion deducted monthly pension contributions that were not remitted by the Abdullahi Ganduje administration, Abba Kabir Yusuf, Kano State governor has vowed.

Disclosing this during the flag-off of the payment of N5 Billion gratuities to 4,000 retirees, the Governor said it was unacceptable for anybody to deduct workers’ monthly pension contributions without remitting the funds.

Yusuf further stressed that the payment of pension was not a privilege but a right.

The governor asked the pensioners to write a petition to the State Government seeking an investigation into the deduction of their monthly pension contributions, assuring that his regime would ensure that their money was recovered.

Assured he: “The debacle we are in now is that all the money deducted from your monthly pension payments, amounting to over N5.4 billion, is that all the money was not remitted to the state treasury rather it was taken to personal accounts, but we are determined to get them back.”

Yusuf added that his administration inherited N43 billion pension arrears from the Gabduje government.

Alhaji Abdulkadir Abdussalam, State Accountant-General, explained that Governor Yusuf was committed to paying pension backlog of ten years.

Comrade Salisu Gwale, Chairman of Nigeria Pensioners Union, Kano State, disclosed that before the 2023 election, “we asked how the new government will solve the problem of pension in Kano, with over N43 billion unpaid pensions.”

Gwale expressed sadness that the pensioners were shortchanged by Ganduje’s administration.