Idris Ahmed
22 November 2009
interview
Abuja — Hassan Saleh is the out- going Director of the Custom, Immigration and Prison Pension Office (CIPO). In this interview, he said that government released a supplementary budget of N8.7 billion to pay the pensioners. He also said that since he assumes office January 17, 2008, pensioners now get paid on or before 25th of every month.
Can you tell us how you got into CIPO
Before I was deployed to the Custom, Immigration and Prison Pension Office (CIPO), I was in the Office of the Head of Service as Director of Establishment and Industrial Relations. I had the privilege of knowing the problem of CIPO before I was deployed there. A lot of petitions were sent to the Head of Service which I know of.
It took me about two weeks to go through all the petitions which were more than 8, 000. They were all about non-payment of pensions. I told myself I was going to face problems and I prepared for them. I set up several task forces on specific areas. About six or seven task forces were set up.
It was a situation I found very daunting because some people were kept for seven years without payment. We had to do some assessment to know how to deal with the situation.
We ran to the government and the government released a supplementary budget of N8.7 billion to us in December 2008.
We started paying these arrears from December 23, 2008. We couldn't finish paying because of the problems involved. There are many people that have not been paid because some of the leave in remote villages. Some are very old and weak. We are still waiting for them to turn up.
What was the N8.7 billion supplementary budget for?
Beside the regular monthly pension which was N4.3 billion this supplementary budget was designed to pay arrears that accumulated over the years. As at now we have paid not less than N6 billion. We are still paying.
What are the major problems you discovered in CIPO?
We discovered that every pensioner has a problem. We have paid not less than 18, 000 people. I met about 180 cheques that were pasted at the back of pensioners' files for several years unreleased.
Why?
It was minuted to the person who was supposed to pay the cheques but did not release them. Some people died waiting. We are able to clear all these. Those who have been going to CIPO for years will today testify that you now have limited number of people waiting to be attended to.
When did you assume duty?
I came to office January 17, 2008.
In terms of outstanding gratuity, how much do you owe?
We have a committee working on that now. There are categories of pensioners that have not been paid since they were removed from service. They are called customs downsize.
Why are they not paid?
That time, every agency was supposed to compile names of those they downsized and referred to the Bureau for Public Service Reforms. A committee will work on it at the bureau and forward to the President for approval. Unfortunately, the Nigerian Custom Service did not follow due process. The bureau turned down the list. We are still struggling to get government to release money to pay them. There are many things that came up and distorted the list. There are about 2, 751 people. We learnt that some of those people have been reinstated into service. They have to be remove from the list, the custom has to come in and help us out. Some of them don't have complete records. We cannot compute their severance package. While waiting, about 67 of them died. Five of these people committed suicide.
I will lay the blame solely on the custom service because they have not been able to give us up to date records of those people and as such it was not easy for us to compute. Right now, we have set up another committee to classify the list of the custom downsized officers.
For those who have died we expect that the Customs will recommend the names of their next of kins to be paid.
When were these people downsized?
I was told 2006. Up till now they have not been paid. It is a very pathetic situation. We invited them in December when we started paying. We opened files for those who have complete records and pay them 23 months arrears. We are now paying them monthly pension but those who don't have complete records and those who don't have records at all are not on our list yet.
How about the directives to pay the ex-biafran soldiers?
We received directives to pay those who worked with immigrations and prisons before they moved to Biafra. We are able to get at least 71 of them from the Budget Office. The Budget Office was paying them when they were pardoned by the Presidency. The directive was that we should go round the country to fish them out. We are able to get about 65 of them. We are now trying to inform the Minister of Interior. We also need to get money to pay them.
How has the e-payment affected your activity?
Our greatest problem is with the banks and the pensioners. When you release money to the banks they keep it for some days before putting it in the individual account of the pensioner and that frustrate them. E-payment was suppose to be the fasted ways of paying pensioners but to my disappointed, most of the banks don't credit the account of the pensioners when you release money to them.
What day of the month do the pensioners get paid?
When I came in there was no particular day and I changed that situation. They now get their pension on the 25th of every month. I have now changed it to the 15th of every month. It depends on the release of funds from the office of the Accountant General of the Federation. We worked very hard to ensure that it does not go beyond the 25th of every month.
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