We Have Settled 99% Of Pension Arrears – NJC

The Secretary-General of the National Judicial Coun-cil (NJC), Ahmed Gambo Saleh, has disclosed that the commission has settled its backlog of pension arrears running into N2.9 billion.
Saleh, who said this at a verification exercise in Lagos over the weekend, also pointed out that though the NJC inherited N2.9 billion debt when it took over in 2007, so far it has been able to settle 99 percent of it.
“The NJC took over the administration of pension for retired judiciary officers otherwise known as the defined benefit scheme in the year 2007.
“The exercise is being handled by the office of the Head of Service of the federation.
“By coming into force with the Pension and Administration Judicial Officers Act 2007, the NJC was saddled with the responsibility of administrating same.
“These two developments forced a number of challenges to the council in the sense that, apart from taking over the administration of the pension, the Council also inherited a huge sum of money in terms of arrears for the entire judicial officers and federal judiciary staff in the tune of N2.6 billion.
“It is, however, gratifying today for me to say that the Council has so far settled 99 percent of its arrears. Not only that, but the Council is also up-to-date in terms of monthly pension to all judiciary pensioners; having paid the pension for the month of October, just some few days ago,” Saleh said.