MUST READ: 10 years after retirement, policemen beg for gratuities

Akpan, Iyamba

Almost 10 years after retirement from service, some retired police officers in Cross River State are still begging the authorities of the Nigeria Police Force to pay them their gratuities and monthly pension.

The retired officers, who are living in penury, said they had yet to receive any money after undergoing the usual verification more than eight different times since retirement.

According to......

Punch Metro, the frail looking 69-year-old retired Deputy Superintendent of Police, Mr. Udoh Akpan, said his children had stopped going to school because of lack of money.

The retired DSP said he last served at the Cross River State Command headquarters in Calabar, where he retired in 2006 and had done the verification more than seven times without getting paid.

Akpan is not the only one with such predicament as his colleagues, James Iyamba and Bassey Ejom, also retired as DSP and Inspector respectively in 2006.

According to Akpan, who currently squats in an apartment in Calabar with his five children, there was assurance that he would be paid after the last verification exercise in January 2015.

When contacted over the unpaid retired officers, the Chairman of the Association of Retired Police Officers of Nigeria in Cross River State, Mr. Bassey Inyang, who retired as a Deputy Commissioner of Police, confirmed that some retirees had not been paid.

“By virtue of the pension Act 2004 which took effect in 2006, the Contributory Pension Scheme was introduced. Those that retired from 2006 to 2008 had this problem of payment because they belong to the old scheme called Pension Transition Administration Department.

“I am aware that the Federal Government has sent teams to verify the PTAD people and they do it from time to time. But some of the old people have not been paid because of human errors.

“After the last verification, there was a new government in place and money has to be approved again. About two people have come to me and I have forwarded that information to our headquarters.”

Culled - Punch

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