The Federal Government has been urged to wade into alleged deliberate short payment of some retirees’ entitlements by Pencom and some Pension Funds Administrators, PFAs, to save their lives across the country.

A retired staff of the Petroleum Training Institute, PTI, Effurun, Delta State, Mr. Stanley Ikpotor made the call in Warri,  while addressing newsmen on the plight of retirees, saying that despite the National Assembly Act of 2014 stipulating a payment withdrawal programme of 25 percent minimum and 50 percent maximum withdrawal template and another May 15, 2018 memo ordering the PFAs to abide by the above payment template,  some set of retirees were paid only 20 percent of their entitlement in July 2018.

He said they had no choice but to accept the short payment because of hunger and starvation but wondered why the short payment by some PFAs with the connivance of the Pencom.

He called for the payment of their arrears of the July withdrawal, saying that the Pencom was set up for the benefit of pensioners and not for the aggrandizement of PFAs.

According to  Ikpotor, Pencom has no right to change  the payment template at their own whims and caprices to suit the PFAs or on the basis of sympathy to some persons or institutions for selfish reasons and appealed to the President Muhammadu Buhari to investigate their complaint and order the refund of their arrears of July short payment.

He said the IBTC Pension had told them that they were paid according to instructions from Pencom then and want the unwarranted change  of payment template stopped forthwith, adding   “We have just 10 years to withdraw all their monies and stand the risk of losing same to PFAs if we do not collect it all before then. So they have to be paying us according to approved template and not below or short of it will be acceptable to us.”