The adoption of the e-payment option for all public sector transactions was meant to address a number of problems associated with government businesses. The system was not only meant to check corruption and abuse of process, but also to make such transactions faster and less cumbersome.

But Mr. Hassan Saleh, out-going director of Customs, Immigration and Prisons Pension Office (CIPPO) says instead of easing the pains of retirees and the traditional problems associated with pension payment, e-payment has often aggravated them because of the antics of some bankers, who, according to him, have devised means of defeating the purpose for which the e-payment initiative was adopted for their own selfish gains.

“When you release money to the banks they keep it for some days before putting it in the individual accounts of the pensioners and that frustrates them. E-payment was suppose to be the fastest way of paying pensioners, but to my disappointment, most of the banks don’t credit the account of the pensioners when you release money to them,” he told Daily Sun in Abuja.
It is a recurrent problem that Saleh has had to contend with since assuming office as the CIPPO boss on January 17, 2008. In a particular case he had to summon the manager of a bank when the bank failed to credit pensioners with their money long after the money had been paid through the bank. The aggrieved affected pensioners would go to the bank for their payment, only to be told it had not been paid. Then they would return to CIPPO, only to be told again it had been lodged with the bank. “It can be very frustrating,” he points out.

Of course, pensioners have their own peculiar problems which make the e-payment process a little cumbersome if not complex for them. “We discovered that every pensioner had a problem. We have paid no fewer than 18, 000 people. I met about 180 cheques that were pasted at the back of pensioners’ files for several years unreleased,” he says.
The cheques were signed and taken the person who was supposed to issues them out to the expectant pensioners, but for whatever reason the man did not release them, long after they were ready. “Some people died waiting. We have been 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 I assumed duty the place was like a mini-market. Some people made the place their permanent abode,” Saleh recalls.

But those were not the only problems encountered by Saleh when he was deployed to CIPPO from the office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation where he was serving as the Director of Establishment and Industrial Relations. In fact, prior to that time, customs, immigrations and prisons retirees were having repeated nightmares over the payment of their benefits, including monthly pensions. He recalls that petitions were being shipped into the office of the Head of Service on continuous basis as the frustrated pensioners complained about how they were being short-changed by the system.

In his capacity as the director of establishment and industrial relations, Saleh was privy to all the goings-on in CIPPO. In deed, it was in response to the crisis in the office that the then Head of Service, Ms. Ebele Okeke, had to send him to CIPPO on a rescue mission as it were. “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,” he says.
So from the outset Saleh knew it was not going to be a tea party. He says as much: “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.”

After the initial assessment, Saleh ran to the federal government, cap in hand. The government responded and released a supplementary budget of N7.8 billion to the office in December 2008. CIPPO started paying the arrears on December 23, just in time to put some smile on the faces of the retirees ahead of Christmas. Still there are many who have yet to be paid because of the problems involved. As the out-going CIPP boss put it, some of the live in remote villages, while some are just very old and weak. “We are still waiting for them to turn up,” he says.

How did CIPPO use the N7.8 billion? Saleh explains that besides the payment of regular monthly pension which was N4.3 billion, the supplementary budget was used to pay pension arrears that had accumulated over the years. As at today, he says, not less than N6 billion has been spent on these, and the office is still paying.

In terms of outstanding gratuity, CIPPO, under Saleh’s administration had set up a committee which has been working to ascertain the amount involved. Again another category of pensioners that has given the office a serious headache is those who were forcefully retired from Customs few years back during what was called a downsizing exercise. Since then they have not been paid their disengagement benefits. Some of them even committed suicide out of frustration.
Explaining the peculiar situation of the Customs retirees, the CIPPO director blames the authorities of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) for the unnecessary punishment the former Customs personnel have been subjected to. “That time, every agency was supposed to compile names of those they downsized and referred to the Bureau for Public Service Reforms. A committee would work on it at the bureau and forward to the Presidency for approval. Unfortunately, the Nigerian Custom Service did not follow due process,” he says.

Because of the failure of Customs to follow laid-down procedure for disengaging the affected persons, Salah says the Bureau of Public Service Reforms had turned down their list. Up till now, CIPPO is 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 removed 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.”

Besides causing the problem in the first place, the Customs authorities appear not to be very keen on getting it rectified. Saleh thinks they cannot be absolved from culpability and indeed says he lays “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 has not been 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.”

Decrying a situation where people relieved of their jobs in 2006 would still not get their gratuities three years later because of the omissions and commissions of those still in service, he says: It is a very pathetic situation. When you meet some of them you think they have never worked in their life and some people are not feeling any guilt about it.”
When CIPPO started paying last December, it invited retirees from the three agencies it covers, namely Customs, Immigration and Prisons. Files were opened for those who have complete records, who were then paid 23 months arrears. CIPPO is now paying them monthly pension but those who don’t have complete records and those who don’t have records at all are not in its list yet. As a result Saleh insists they are not being paid anything yet.

On payment of pensions and gratuities to ex-Biafran personnel, he confirmed that CIPPO had received a directive to pay those who worked with Customs, Immigrations and Prisons before they moved to Biafra. “We were 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 have been 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,” he explains.

However, there are still complaints from the Biafran retirees on non-payment of their pensions. Saleh, who once served as Secretary to the Government of Yobe State before transferring to the Federal Service is quite aware of this: “When people write petitions that they have not been paid, we normally go to the individual file to see the record and to know what happened. We do that through the various task forces which we appointed to look into such problem.”

Reminded that there might be those without file, he says there is little CIPPO can do in such cases because the only proof that a person has a history of service is the file containing his record of service. Without a file, he says, “we assume that you are not a pensioner until you prove to us that you are one. Paying anybody that claims he is a pensioner is not just good enough.”

Saleh would want to be remembered for laying the foundation for a smooth administration of pension for those who serve their country in the three key parastatals covered by CIPPO. He says: “When I came in, there was no particular date (for pensioners to receive their monthly pension), but I changed that situation. They now get their pension on the 25th day 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.”

By: MODESTUS CHUKWULAKA, ( The Sun newspaper ) Abuja