Gbenro Adesina
Oyo State Government has declared its readiness to offset backlog of gratuity owed retired workers of the state from 2013 to June 2020, saying that the state has paid N1.4billion from January 2020 to August 2020.
The State Commissioner for Establishment and Training, Prof. Daud Sangodoyin said Governor Seyi Makinde has made it a matter of state policy to pay up the accrued gratuity while salaries, pensions and other emoluments would continue to be paid as at when due.
Sangodoyin, while briefing newsmen today at his office in Ibadan assured retirees in the state that the present administration has allocated 70 per cent of monthly gratuity allocation to retires from June 2013, according to their date of filing their retiring documents.
He added that 20 per cent from the monthly fund would go to retirees from the Judicial Service Commission, while 10 per cent would be dedicated to retirees that fall under health and compassionate ground.
According to him, “The present administration has paid gratuity till August 2013, which amounts to N1.4billion and we still have N26billion target to cover, which is our goal. Governor Seyi Makinde has made it clear that the welfare of workers and retirees will be paramount in his policy decisions and that is why you have seen the dedication he has for the monthly funding for the disbursement of the gratuity. The policy of the present administration is centered on merit, openness and transparency. Those people on the list are paid chronologically from 2013. Those are the mainstream and they have 70 per cent of the monthly funding, while the retirees from the Judicial Service Commission has 20 per cent and 10 per cent goes to those under health and compassionate ground. A man was recently reported in the social media to need a certain amount of money to offset hospital bill and the news got to the state governor, he immediately directed the payment of his gratuity and also an old woman who came to complain that the banks wanted to take over her house due to loan she took, we had to pay her also under the health and compassionate vote”.
The Commissioner also stated that the Ministry has trained and was still in the process of training 1,500 workers of the state and local government on leadership, teamwork, digital governance and Information Communication Technology (ICT) knowledge to improve their efficiency and boost the state internal revenue.
He added that starting from this month, workers with six months to retirement would be enrolled in a public-private exchange programme that would prepare retirees for life after retirement and how to engage their time in productive agricultural ventures in consonance with the state government’s policy of agricultural development for self-reliance.
