We’re working to ensure lives of retirees don’t depreciate after service – FG

By Bashir Bello

KANO — The Federal Government on Thursday said it is putting efforts in place to ensure that the quality of lives of prospective retirees do not depreciate after active public service.

The Director General, Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Ibrahim Dasuki stated this during the 2024 pre-retirement training it organized for retired and prospective retirees of federal parastatals in Kano.

Dasuki said the President Bola Tinubu-led government, in line with the renewed hope agenda of the administration, is concerned with the living standard of the retirees after retirement to ensure a sustainable life in retirement.

He said quite a number of the retirees were not doing anything or engaged after retirement hence the need to equip the prospective retirees ahead of the retirements.

According to him, “The pre-retirement training programme for retiring officers of Federal Parastatals is one of the cardinal programmes of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, BPSR. The essence of the programme is to prepare the retiring officers to face the future and to also ensure that the quality of their lives does not depreciate.

“It is known in the space of literature that retirement is a disaster. Now, this effort of the government is to solve, block and reduce the impact of that disaster of retirement on public servants. The most important exercise that an employee can embark upon is to prepare for retirement. Retirement which marks another phase in the life of people is an exercise that is worth planning for. Many people have had very bad experiences in their retirement life possibly because of their failure to adequately plan for it.

“Government in its wisdom thought it wise to impact on them some basic knowledge on how to go about their normal life in retirement and how they will properly utilize their retirement benefits. Due to the immense benefits derived from the first edition, the training has been institutionalized and is being conducted by the Bureau annually on retirees from Federal Parastatals.

“We expect that at the end of this programme, participants would have learnt new thinking that would equip them to form a pool of knowledge and experience that could be easily tapped, thus forming part of the move towards the attainment of sustainable life in retirement in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of the Present Administration.

“The materials for the training have been prepared in book form with two volumes: Handbook and Workbook. The Handbook has been designed in a way that it could serve as a reference document. Participants are therefore advised to make maximum use of it, both during the programme and as source material in the future.

“We have virtually picked 110 agencies now and what we have is less than 10 per cent of prospective retirees and those who have retired that we are going to cover in this test trial,” Dasuki added.

The BPSR Director General however, urged the participants to put all they have learnt into practice to ensure that they surmount every obstacle that may come their way while contributing to the growth and development of the nation.

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