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As at 1996 after his retirement, his gratuity was N17,369.28 per month. Unfortunately, he died in 2011, according to his son who identified himself as Sunday Egbonwobodo.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Edwin Ugwu was offered an appointment to work as a Caretaker in Cabinet Office, Special Services Division, Enugu, on April 25, 1979. He retired in August 1995 as Head Gardener at Grade level 03 in the Cabinet Office.
As at 1996 after his retirement, his gratuity was N17,369.28 per month. Unfortunately, he died in 2011, according to his son who identified himself as Sunday Egbonwobodo.
But narrating his frustration as he tries to get his father’s gratuity this year, Sunday told SaharaReporters that he was an apprentice in Lagos State when his father died in 2011.
However, he returned to Enugu in 2021 and started the process of his father’s gratuity. He took his father’s documents to a former pension official, Orji Romanus, who took him to the woman in charge of pension and gratuity in the Enugu State Accountant General’s office.
“I took my father’s documents to one man, Mr. Orji Romanus, a civil servant who worked in the pension office before he was transferred to the Ministry of Education where he is working now.
“One of my aunts directed me to the man and I took the documents to him because I was told that he is the one who informs people when pension is being paid,” he said.
Sunday said he went to Romanus’ office in Enugu and presented his father’s documents including the appointment letter, retirement documents and other documents pertaining to Edwin’s 17 years of service.
“He saw the documents and told me it was a lot of money. He took me to the Enugu State Accountant General’s office where we met one lady. The lady told me to drop the photocopy of the documents and I did.
“She told me that my father’s retirement has been long and that they have only been paying from 2001. I told her that one of our neighbours who retired in the 1980s was still paid, let alone my father who retired in 1995,” Sunday said.
“I asked why they are not paying from when my father retired, she said I shouldn’t mind.
“As we were leaving, the man said I should give the lady money to buy airtime. I gave her N500 but the man said I should give her N1,000 but I said I didn’t have N1,000, that I had just returned from where I had been on apprenticeship and my master did not pay me.”
Sunday said afterwards he kept calling Romanus about the money but nothing was coming up. “One day I called him and he said I should come to his office. I went to his office and he told me that the woman said we should come.
“I asked him if the woman had found the file because I didn’t want to waste money on transport. I don’t have money and my mother cannot walk because she has a knee problem.
“I told him that the money I had was borrowed with the hope that when I made some money, I would repay them. I showed him the one I borrowed, N10,000 to pay N15,000 and the one of N5,000 to pay back N7,000,” he said.
After all that, Sunday said that Romanus told him that he (Sunday) was “supposed to give him a photocopy of the gratuity documents”.
“I asked him why knowing that I have submitted it at the Accountant General’s office. He said that he was supposed to have it too.
“Then, we went to the Accountant General’s office and the woman started talking about how she searched through four bundles of files, yet, she did not see my father’s file but that I should know that if they find it, the total money for my father’s gratuity is N17,369. 28.
“I asked her, how? How can the gratuity of somebody whose salary before his retirement was N4,929.12 with an allowance of N9,000 be N17,359.28? She insisted and I told her that the amount she was referring to is per month and even showed them another file where it was indicated that the amount is per month but they still did not agree.
“They said that what they do is that any amount written on the file is what they pay as the total gratuity. I told them that my father’s gratuity for 17 years can never be such a ridiculous amount.”
When he asked Romanus if he had forgotten that he told him (Sunday) on the first day that it was a huge amount of money, “he said he didn’t see it well. Meanwhile, the documents were with him for a whole day.”
Sunday reemphasised that his father was not sacked, rather, he retired because of old age.
“How then will his gratuity be N17,369.28? But they insisted that there was nothing they could do again about it. I thought that they were joking but they left me stranded there.
“I left the office and when I returned home, I met one of our neighbours who is a retired civil servant and explained everything to her and she said they lied to me.”
Speaking amid tears, Sunday lamented that he had spent more than N17,000 on transport fares for Romanus and himself within the time they went to the Accountant General’s office.
“My mother is currently in the hospital and I have visited her three times but she has not been able to talk,” he lamented.
All efforts by SaharaReporters to reach Orji Romanus failed as calls made to his phone number kept saying that the number cannot receive calls. Unfortunately, the woman in charge of pension and gratuity in the Accountant General’s office refused to disclose her identity including her name to Sunday. She also refused to release her phone number.
