{"id":2731,"date":"2025-03-15T14:06:23","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T14:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/?p=2731"},"modified":"2025-03-15T14:10:56","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T14:10:56","slug":"cpuon-cries-to-fg-calls-for-review-of-pencon-act-seeks-upward-review-of-their-pension-as-retirees-are-dying-of-hunger-harsh-economic-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/2025\/03\/15\/cpuon-cries-to-fg-calls-for-review-of-pencon-act-seeks-upward-review-of-their-pension-as-retirees-are-dying-of-hunger-harsh-economic-situation\/","title":{"rendered":"CPUON Cries out\u00a0 to FG, calls for Review of PENCON Act   &#8230;.Seeks upward review of their pension   &#8230;.As retirees die of hunger, harsh economic situation\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Disturbed by the prolonged neglect of retirees of the public sector, and the paltry amount being paid to Pensioners as pension, the Contributory Pensioners Union of Nigeria has pleaded with the Federal government to as a matter urgency review the PENCON Act.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<div id=\"attachment_858\" style=\"width: 308px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-858\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-858\" src=\"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Screenshot_20241031-105924_1-298x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"298\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Screenshot_20241031-105924_1-298x300.jpg 298w, https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Screenshot_20241031-105924_1-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Screenshot_20241031-105924_1-80x80.jpg 80w, https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Screenshot_20241031-105924_1.jpg 720w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 298px) 100vw, 298px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-858\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">National Assembly<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">In this exclusive interview with the Publisher of Daily Echoes Media, Ignatius Okorocha, National Secretary of Contributory Pensioners Union of Nigeria (CPUON), Comrade Eugene Emezue disclosed that the Federal government has not reviewed the PENCON\u00a0 Act. According to the National Secretary the delay in amending the PENCON Act has resulted in Pensioners being neglected to the extent that their pension and not paid as and when due and even when it is paid, it is nothing to write home about in view of the hard economic situation in the country.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&#8220;First and foremost,the National Pension Commission otherwise known as PENCON is duly commissioned by the Federal government to be the regulator of all Contributory pension scheme in Nigeria of the Treasury funded at Federal, State and local government levels in this country.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&#8220;For almost 20 years now (2004) when most of the Civil Servants were assumed to have retired but for those who could migrate from the defined benefit scheme, migrated from the Contributory Pension Scheme in 2007 and from 2007 to date, government has not deemed it fit to review the Contributory Pension Scheme for retirees.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&#8220;That is the problem we are having. For that problem to be solved, the Federal government of Nigeria should listen to the National Pension of Nigeria. Whatever policy they have done, the Act stipulates according to section 173 and section 3 of 1999 constitution as amended,empowered the government and all Pensioners for their pension to be reviewed every five years or whenever there is an increase in salaries and wages of active workers.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&#8220;As pensioners today, we were formally active workers and according to section 91 of the Labour Act. It states that there two\u00a0 contract agreement worker:<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">1. Active worker.When one works for 35 years or sixty years before retirement and after retirement he or she remains an employee of a federal government because he has the contractual passion of it which says that she of her will be receiving pension until death do her\/she part.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u00a0&#8220;Therefore in view of this, every CPS retiree who is alive must continue to receive pension until he or she dies,&#8221; he said.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">He further noted that,&#8221;It is the responsibility of the employer either in private or public sector and those of us in public sector. So, the federal government of Nigeria owns all workers under CPS their pension review just as the defined benefits scheme are receiving their pension and it is being reviewed by the Federal government.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u00a0He wondered why the Federal government should not review the pension of Contributory Pensioners even when there is salary review of workers at\u00a0 both federal and state governments levels.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">On when the last pension was paid Pensioners he said,&#8221; from all indications as of December 2024, people who retired as at February 2023 were not paid their pension almost two years since they retired. It was just by December that the PENCON managed to pay\u00a0 about three to four months arrears ( that February, March and April) from my own record\u00a0 PENCON has not paid any Pensioners his or her pension beyond May 2023.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">On the effect of this delay in\u00a0 payment of pension to retirees, Mr Emezue said,&#8221; there has been records of Pensioners dying of sicknesses and starvation looking at the<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u00a0present economic situation in the country. Most of these retirees have their children\u00a0 still in schools and some of them have lost their accommodations because they were unable\u00a0 to pay their rents.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">He pleaded with the leadership of the House of Representatives and Senate committees to review PENCON Act for the larger interest of retirees welfare while calling for an upward review of their\u00a0 pension\u00a0 take home package in the light of the current hard economic situation in the country.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Disturbed by the prolonged neglect of retirees of the public sector, and the paltry amount being paid to Pensioners as pension, the Contributory Pensioners Union of Nigeria has pleaded with the Federal government to as a matter urgency review the PENCON Act. In this exclusive interview with the Publisher of Daily Echoes Media, Ignatius Okorocha, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1713,993,1714,152,1712,925,753,1533],"class_list":["post-2731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-economy","tag-contributory","tag-economic","tag-hard","tag-hunger","tag-pencon","tag-pension","tag-retirees","tag-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2731"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2735,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions\/2735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}