A 75-year-old pensioner of the Delta Steel Company Aladja-Warri in Delta State, Prince Brume-Ezewu, has threatened to commit suicide over his 12 years unpaid pensions by the Management of DSC.
The Septuagenarian father of eight children, who spoke to DAILY POST in Asaba, said: “I need help from the National Assembly, human rights and the civil society as a result of the deliberate removal of my name from the pension list as well as stoppage of my pension payment since 2007”.
He said further, “I am the first Pensioner of the Delta Steel Company, Uvwian-Aladja in Delta State that retired in July 1983. and as at the time of my retirement, I was paid my gratuity and the monthly pension was on until 2007 when the pension was stopped. I want to die, I have no money to feed, no money to train my children. Within two weeks if no payment of my pensions, I will kill myself on the road. I am very hungry, very hungry.”
Brume-Ezewu said that everything went well until 2007 when his pension was stopped, adding that, “I ’ve been trying to ask them (PTAD – Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate) to pay because a lot of pensioners of DSC have died in the process of waiting for their payment”.
According to him, “in 2017, they said we should come for verification which was carried out between 20th– 28th November, 2017 at the premises of Wetland Event Centre, 22, Orhuwhorun road, before Ekete Waterside Junction, Ekete, in Udu Local government area of Delta State where the exercise went well and a confirmation paper was issued to each of us at the end, The verification notification as contained in Vanguard newspaper publication of Wednesday, November 15, 2017 and duly signed by the Executive Secretary of PTAD, Mrs. Sharon Ikeazor. They then said we would receive the pension arrears as well as the monthly pension beginning in January 2018. But in the said January 2018 nothing happened until around June 2018 when they started paying pension again.”
“When the payment of pension started again in June 2018, amazingly, my name was not there. It was omitted, and even the pensioners that they managed to pay received half pension, not full pension. That was even the much surprise.”
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