FROM Tribune Newspaper of Tuesday 27th May 2014. Osun lecturers’ pension fund: Omisore tasks EFCC to probe Aregbesola •Omisore is notorious for telling lies —APC THE gubernatorial flag-bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Osun State, Iyiola Omisore, over the weekend, tasked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to immediately probe Governor Rauf Aregbesola over alleged non-remittance of contributory pension deductions of academic and non academic staffers in the state owned tertiary institutions. He said this has become imperative to save the future of the workers, who he said had embarked on almost four months industrial action over the matter and others demands, which the state government had failed to address. Students of higher institutions in Osun State had stormed the streets of Osogbo, in a protest last Thursday, halting socio- economic activities for some hours, to denounce the debacle over the prolonged strike action by their lecturers. Omisore, in a statement issued by his Director of Media and Strategy, Prince Diran Odeyemi, decried what he termed gross insensitivity of Governor Aregbesola to the plights of the lecturers, which truncated academic activities for almost four months. According to him, “it is only an illiterate governor that would allow the closure of four tertiary institutions in the state for about four months without attending to the agitations of the workers.” “The demands and agitations of the striking workers of the institutions are genuine, legitimate and just. It is criminal on the part of the governor to deduct the 7.5 per cent of the workers’ salary for Monthly Pension Contributions as established by the Federal Government without remittance to the Pension Fund Administrators’ (PFA) account for about 20 months,” Omisore asserted. Reacting over the PDP’s call on EFCC to probe Aregbesola, APC’s Director of Publicity, Research and Strategy, in Osun, Kunle Oyatomi, said “Omisore has become notorious for telling lies about Osun. So much so that some PDP members themselves are becoming embarrassed that most people no longer see this man as a witness of truth on Osun matters.” “Everything Omisore has said about the teachers’ strike in Osun is false. He told similar heaps of lies about Osun debt until the PDP-led Federal Government confirmed that Omisore is not a witness of truth. As he lied about debt so he is lying about teachers’ pension,” he remarked. The gubernatorial hopeful also condemned non-implementation of 65 years retirement age for the academic staffers as gazetted by the Federal Government and implemented by all institutions in the country except in Osun State. Omisore added that it is only somebody who had never seen the four walls of a university that could be insensitive to the yearnings of educators in the state. He challenged the governor to give detail accounts of what he has done with the lecturers’ pensions running to about N20 billion. He also urged parents and guardians in the state to prevail upon the insensitivity of Governor Aregbesola on the legitimate demands of the striking tertiary institutions’ workers. It will be recalled that academic activities have been paralysed in the four tertiary institutions in Osun State: Osun State Polytechnic, Iree; Osun State College of Technology, Esa-Oke; Osun State Colleges of Education, Ilesa and Ila-Orangun, as a result of industrial action embarked upon by lecturers and non- teaching staff of the institutions over non-remittance of their monthly Contributory Pension deductions to the Pension Managers since about 20 months ago, and non-implementation of 65 years retirement age of the academic staffers of the institutions.
Posted on: Wed, 28 May 2014 10:16:38 +0000
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