The Ogun State Bureau of Local Government Pensions on Thursday announced that it had paid N2.7 billion arrears since September 2014 for local government pensioners in the state..

The permanent secretary of the bureau, Ayotunde Kolawole, disclosed this during a visit by members of the Ogun State House of Assembly Committee on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs to the agency in Abeokuta.

Kolawole confirmed that the outstanding pension paid was for January to September, adding that the affected pensioners are retired council workers, teaching and non-teaching staff in primary schools.

On how the funds were sourced, the permanent secretary explained that the pension was paid from the monthly allocation the bureau received from the State/Councils Joint Allocation Accounts Committee, JAAC.

He said that the bureau had also paid N43.3 million as gratuities to the same category of pensioners during the period, but advocated that pension payment would be enhanced if the state government paid its contributions to the Local Government Staff Pension Fund.

Kolawole stated that the bureau was saddled with the management of the old pay-as-you-go and the new Contributory Pension Scheme, CPS, for all the affected pensioners, adding that the total number of pensioners being managed by the agency was 8,372 as at September, 2015.

In a response, the State Assembly’s committee chairman, Odofin Sonuga, tasked the bureau to regularly organise seminars for stakeholders as part of measures to fine-tune the pension scheme.

He also advocated a collaborative relation between with the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, the Local Government Service Commission and the House of Assembly to boost the growth of the scheme.