The Delta State Government says it has saved a whopping of N95 billion after the worker’s verification exercise in the state.

The State Commissioner for Information, Mr Charles Aniagwu, and the Senior Policy Adviser to the governor and member Pension Harmonization Committee, Prof Sylvester Monye, made this known shortly after post-Executive Council meeting held on Tuesday in Asaba.

“After verification exercise ranging from date of first latter of appointment, date of birth and others irregularities, the committee was able a to detect the discrepancy and irregularities from worker’s files.

“We go through different MDAs and go through their files to ascertain their first appointment and date birth, we find out that number of workers are been overpaid while some were surcharge.

“After all the exercise, we were able to save the state government about N95bn. When we started this verification, some workers including state NLC executive were not happy with us but today, I can tell you that the NLC officials are happy.

“I am glad to say that the leadership of the organised labour, Chairman of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), and Chairman of Trade Union Congress (TUC), who were at the Exco are also here to brief you on the issue of pension,” they explained.

The State NLC Chairman, Comrade Goodluck Oforbruku and his TUC counterpart, Comrade Martins Bolum, who expressed gratitude to Okowa for being workers-friendly, saying that the governor had earned a position in workers Hall of Fame.

They said,

“To address the issue of accrued rights of pensioners, Governor Okowa set up a committee and the committee commenced work as far back as October 2015.

“At a point, we lost hope and thought the issue will not be dealt with during this administration, but today, the State Executive Council has approved the harmonization of accrued rights of pensioners In this state.

“It means that the Delta State Government will use the N18,000 minimum wage to calculate the pension entitlement of retirees in the state.

“This means that those who retired as far back as 2011, instead of the N7,500 minimum wage that was used to calculate their entitlement, government has approved that the N18,000 minimum wage be used.

“This approval has been Labour’s cry; that has been our struggle and that is what the state Executive Council just approved today” they added.

The duo noted that the Contributory Pension Law in the state says that when an officer retires, he should go home with at least 50 per cent of his last salary, but, when the N7,500 minimum wage was being used, officers were going home with 15 to 20 per cent of their last salary, saying the approval will cost the state government a whopping N37 billion from March 2011 to December 2019.