Lagos State clears almost N100bn pension liability

Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos State has revealed that the state has cleared almost N100 billion pension liability.

Sanwo-Olu made this known at Wednesday’s third annual Lagos State Employment Summit. The event themed ‘Job Creation Uniting for Impact: Create, Collaborate, Change’ aimed at creating job opportunities and employment in the state government’s bid to reduce Lagos’s unemployment rate.

“We have cleared almost a hundred billion of pension liability,” he said, adding that he will sign the last Pension arrears on Thursday and that Lagos will be the first state in the country to do that.

Earlier in the year, the governor had pledged to clear all accrued pension rights owed by the state. He said, having paid N3.20 billion into the RSA of 1,013 retirees as accrued pension rights for February, the state government would pay N4 billion in March and another N3 billion in April to settle the debt.

“While we acknowledge the backlog in the payment of accrued rights, our attention is focused on systematically eliminating this backlog,” he said

“I am pleased to announce that we have made substantial progress in this regard, and I am confident that before the end of my tenure, our aspiration for a “Pay As You Go” model will be realised,” he added.

Sanwoolu, also highlighted at the summit that the state government is planning to set up a medical university before the end of his tenure.

“Lagos State Government is planning to set up a medical university in Lagos as our throwback when we leave office,” Sanwoolu said.

He stated that in this day and age, there is an outbreak of cholera. “We transparently communicated to escalate it and communicate it to the public.

“I want to say within the last three, four weeks we have been able to address cholera which is less than 2-3 percent as we have been able to contain it to the barest minimum,” he said.

He stated that Cholera is a behavioral thing. “We need to correct our system effectively and as the government, we see that we need to additionally get about N100 billion to fix urban water and see that they are where they are needed so we don’t come to this Cholera era again.”