Niger State House of Assembly has described as worrisome the N28b gratuity owed retired civil servants in the state.
This was made known during the screening exercise of the 2024 budget of the Pension Board by the committee on Labour and Productivity.
The chairman of the committee, Hon. Murtala Badaru, lamented how the plight of retired civil servants has been undermined and neglected.
Badaru said that even the previous budget did not take the retirees into consideration, and as such, they will, together as the representatives of the people, change the narrative.
"The previous performance of the 2023 budget was very poor too, especially on the issue of gratuity.
"Even the pension statutory allocation that is the component of the board, as the name implies, was cut off at N400 million. Where do you expect them to get the completion? That is to say, something is wrong with the system," he said.
The Chairman condemned the 'enveloping system of budgets, where he said ministries, agencies, and departments (MDA's) are given anything, irrespective of whether it will be enough for them or not.
According to him, the system of enveloping was not healthy and must be stopped.
"The entire members of the committee are not happy with those that are concerned with the issue of preparing the budget for 2024, that is, the Planning Commission.
"The envelope system entails the total that would be allocated to MDA's irrespective of their issues, and we say enough is enough; this will not continue to happen in Niger," he said.
He used the medium to call on Mr. Governor to impress on the Planning Commission to always prepare budgets for reality.