Delta State government has warned retirees from the state public service not to give bribes to anyone for processing pension benefits.
Chairman, Delta State Bureau for Pension, Sir Edwin Ogidi-Gbegbaje gave the charge when the executives and members of the Asaba Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) paid him a courtesy visit yesterday in Asaba.
He threatened that the bureau would deal decisively with anyone caught in the act since he said the Bureau has ensured that the state retirees would not have to spend years before getting their pension and retirement benefits.
Ogidi-Gbegbaje noted that it was absurd for anyone to pay a dime to any officer for the processing of their pension benefits and that if there could be allegation of fraud against their officials, journalists should investigate and establish that fact before publishing their reports.
“Nobody is expected to pay a dime to access his pension benefits in the state. Anybody who pays money to anyone for the sake of his or her benefits to be processed, the person is acting on his own. Such person does not have the instruction of the bureau to do so,” Ogidi-Gbegbaje stated.
He tasked journalists to ensure balanced reportage and to check the excesses of quacks on the social media.
He cautioned journalists against character assassination, adding that reputation took years to build and should not be damaged in an instant by quacks on social media.
Corroborating, Mr Lawson Efenudu, Secretary to the Bureau, he said that the Bureau was committed to ensuring prompt payment of the retirees benefits both to the new and old pension scheme pensioners which runs side by side in the state.
Earlier, the chairman, Asaba Correspondents Chapel, Comrade Ifeanyi Olannye, urged the board members to deploy the determination and zeal that they were known for into ensuring prompt payment of the retirement benefits and pension to retirees of the state workforce.
“We have observed with nostalgia the pains retirees go through in the country, Delta not exempted, while trying to access their pension. More worrisome is that many have died without accessing their benefits due to delay occasioned by bureaucracy in government,” he said.
