The Military Pension Board has appealed to the Senate to increase its budgetary allocation to enable it to meet the payment of benefits of retirees of the Nigerian Armed Forces.
The Chairman of the MPB, Commodore Saburi Lawal, made the call in Abuja on Wednesday when he appeared before Senate Committee on Defence, to defend MPB 2021 budgetary estimates.
He said, “We appeal to your committee to favourably consider the MPB 2021 budget estimates.
“We appeal to your committee to kindly increase the amount recommended by the Budget Office of the Federation for the pensions, gratuities, death benefits and allied costs to the figures proposed by the board.
“We appeal to your committee to kindly increase the military pensions board overhead and capital cost allocations to accommodate the rising inflationary trend in the society and to enhance infrastructure development of the board.”
He said the annual budgetary allocations to the MPB are divided into pensions, gratuities, death benefits, allied cost, overhead cost and capital expenditure.
Giving a breakdown of 2020 budget performance of MPB, Lawal said, “In 2020, the sum of N270,593,565,984. was appropriated to the board for payment of pensions, gratuities, death benefits and payment of outstanding arrears to retired personnel.
“As at date the sum N163,195,174,488 only has been released to the board representing 75 per cent of the appropriated figure.”
For 2020 capital budget performance, Lawal said that the sum of N187 million was appropriated for the MPB.
He said that N93,901,500 representing 50 per cent of the approved capital budget has been released to the board.
“The sum of N96,459,482 was appropriated as overhead cost, while N56 million, representing 58 per cent has been released.
He said the capital and overhead cost allocations for the MPB were negligible, noting that the amount allocated was the same figure in the last three years.
Responding, the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Aliyu Wammakko, said the Committee would critically look into the issues raised by the MPB.
(NAN)
