By Kemi Olatunde

Public servants in Ondo State have been charged to draw their retirement plans in order to live stress-free lives after exiting service.

Head of Service in the state, Pastor Kayode Ogundele gave the charge at a sensitisation and pre-retirement workshop for teachers and civil servants disengaging from the state public service in the year 2023.

The Head of Service, who blamed untimely deaths of retirees and indecent lives by others on failure to have adequate plans for life after retirement, said officers did not have to wait for the last day of their service to plan their post-retirement lives.

He noted that the state government under the present administration of Governor Akeredolu had put several measures in place to phase out some encumbrances bedeviling timely payment of pensions and gratuities to the state retirees, adding that more plans are in pipeline to make the process seamless.

Pastor Ogundele however relayed some of the recently emplaced to ease the burden of retirees to include centralization of retiring officers in the Pension Transitional Department, decentralisation of pension forms into all the 18 local government areas in the state, digitalization of pension and gratuity administration and online updating of pensioners records among others.

In his welcome address, the Permanent Secretary of the state Pension Transitional Department, Mr Dele Akinmoye said the need to educate retiring officers on issues they would likely encounter in the processing and payment of their retirement benefits informed the sensitisation programme.

He urged participants to avail themselves of the opportunity of the programme and put all issues raised to effective use.

Two papers on ‘Ease of Processing Retirement Benefit’ and ‘Managing Your Health in Retirement’ were delivered by Mr Dele Akinmoye and Dr Olufemi Ajayi respectively.