NJC/FJSC fails to remit 3 years pension arrears for judicial officers

Judicial officers who retired as staff of the Federal High Court since 2014 have neither been paid their pension benefits including gratuities or monthly entitlements till this day, BusinessDay can authoritatively report.

The non-payment of the pension benefits which affects over 350 retirees during the three years span, cutting across the seven federal judicial institutions is alleged to have been as a result of non-remittance of the funds to the Pension Fund Administrators (PFA).

Mark Ogidi, former Director of Library and Information Services department of the Federal High Court, blamed the lackadaisical attitude on the part of the National Judicial Council (NJC) and the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC) for not “getting their acts together.

“They were saying that they did not mobilize the dues in time and so, with the new Contributory Pension Scheme regime, I was part of the committee that sent emissaries to get these thing sorted, I was told that the part of the office is centrally handled by FJSC/NJC were not remitted to our Pension Fund Administrators.

“When the agitation became much, they put together a committee, as we were told; it was early this year they had to start verification for everyone, from 2014 to 2016. It was early this year after I retired in March; they did verification for those who retired in 2014, 2015 and 2016”.

 Ogidi who spoke with BusinessDay on the sideline of the send forth ceremony organized for retiring officers in Abuja, lamented that after they were promised their certificate within two and three months, up till now, they had been given, even though the treasury department promised them before the year runs out.

Earlier in his remarks, Ogidi who retired from service in March 27, 2016 on attainment of sixty years appealed to the management, especially the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Ndahi Auta to step in and see to the logical conclusion of the issue, in good time.

“We do not know what the FJSC is doing about it but we know it can be influenced from you the Chief Judge, imagine someone who retired since 2014 and does not have even his gratuity and monthly retirement, I am using this opportunity to appeal to you to use your office to hasten the payment of these benefits”, he appealed.

It would be recalled that the budget proposals for the judiciary since the year 2014 had, seen a downward reduction, upon its appropriation at a N73billion benchmark for the year 2014 and 2015 respectively, while a total of N70billion  approved in 2016, while N100billion was proposes for 2017.