CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

In most developing countries and Nigeria in particular, government or restrict working age of public civil servants to prevent an ageing labour force by allowing entrants of young- able bodied labour for increasing efficiency and productivity. This has become so necessary because as a worker become older his Marginal Physical Productivity of Labour (MPPL) will decline. Thus retaining such a worker in employment at this point will amount to running the organization at a loss. That is why in Nigeria , statutory working age in the public service is fixed at sixty (60) years or thirty five (35) years of unbroken active working service before retirement.

However, the Retirement Age Harmonization Act of 2012 puts the retirement age of judicial officers and academic staff of tertiary institutions at 70 and 65 years respectively because of the belief that the “older , the wiser” in those sectors. In the private sector, retirement age varies between 55 and 60 years of service and the factor of 35 years of service is not applicable (FGN,2008).Other less measurable retirement criteria such as low productivity, divided interest, labour redundancy, rationalization etc. are often introduced and these have exacerbated the already negative attitude the Nigerian workers have for retirement. Recent studies (Fashoyin, Oyekanmi and Fapohunda,1985; Ogunlesi,1985; and Glenn, 2005) have shown that labour in private and public sectors are noted for their significant contributions to socio-economic development in Nigeria. Globally, government recognizes that between the service years and retirement, workers are considered most energetic and useful as their labor time are spent for their employer(s) .As a reward for their significant and contribution to the economy, government in both developed and developing countries provide retirees access to formal system of retirement income support . In Nigeria, its popularly called employee benefits in the form of pension and gratuity as a reward for workers meritorious service to the nation. According to Kolawole and Mallum (2004) retirement pension is typically one of the largest social security component of public interventions for the retired public civil servants. Except otherwise, mandatory retirement is expected to be a blistfull Transistion in the life of an employee. In western countries and some planned- economies of the world like America, United Kingdom, Britain, Russia, Yugoslavia, Cuba, Malaysia etc where pension schemes are functional, majority of the retired Personnels live comfortable with their pension allowances without any distortion in their family economic stability. Government in these countries made available adequate resources and infrastructural provisions to cushion post- retirement conditions.

1.1 Theoretical Background

Despite several moderations of retirement benefits for workers in Nigeria, pension fund has been characterized by outright corruption and embezzlement, mismanagement and diversion of fund over the years. Fapohunda (2013) revealed recently the multi-million pension fund scandals pervading many strata of the Nigerian society like the Pension unit of the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, PENCOM and the Nigerian Police Pensions. A recent National Assembly public hearing on pension revealed that six civil servants stole #24 billion from the Police Pension Funds. The same persons were alleged accompliances in the illegal diversion of another #24 billion from the Police Pension Funds. Similarly, #151 billion and another #32.8 billion and another 6 million pounds were recovered after the conduct of Biometric Data Capture exercise on pensioners since 2010. Furthermore, it was revealed that whereas #5 billion was paid to the office of The Head of Service monthly for pension payment,

the actual figure was #1.9 billion, a staggering # 3.1 billion difference. Corruption in the Pension Scheme has become so pervasive. The embezzlement and corruption manifests in different shades and colours. Fapohunda (2013) further revealed that of the 141,790 pensioners listed on the government payroll, only 70,657 were said to be genuine, while the Police Pension Office also alleged collected #5 billion monthly as pensioner’s claim instead of the actual requirement of #500 million. Thus millions of pensioners who served this country have their latter years immersed in suffering due to the greed of some uncultured public office holders. More so, the delay in payment of pension and gratuities has brought untold hardship, frustration and death to many retirees, thereby making retirement phenomenon dreaded by workers.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The following problems were identified in the existing retirement clearance system:

1. Delay in the processing of retirement records.
2. Absence of an automated system to aid in maintaining records of retirement clearance.
3. Difficulty in retrieving retirement clearance reports

1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to develop an automated civil service retirement clearance system with the following objectives:

1. To implement a system to maintain record of people due for retirement.
2. To develop a system that can be used to process retirement details for collection of pension.
3. To develop a system that will be used to aid maintaining information for the retirement clearance process.
4. To implement a system that can be used to obtain reports of retirement records.

1.4 Significance of the Study

The study is significant in the following ways:

1. It will ease the retirement clearance process in the ministry of women affairs.
2. It will provide relevant reports pertaining to retirement clearance.
3. The study will serve as a useful reference material to other researchers seeking related information.

1.5 Scope of the Study

This study covers automated civil service retirement clearance and it is limited to the ministry of women affairs, Uyo.

1.6 Organization of the research

This research work is organized into five chapters. Chapter one is concerned with the introduction of the research study and it presents the preliminaries, theoretical background, statement of the problem, aim and objectives of the study, significance of the study, scope of the study, organization of the research and definition of terms.

Chapter two focuses on the literature review, the contributions of other scholars on the subject matter is discussed.

Chapter three is concerned with the system analysis and design. It analyzes the present system to identify the problems and provides information on the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed system. The system design is also presented in this chapter.

Chapter four presents the system implementation and documentation. The choice of programming language, analysis of modules, choice of programming language and system requirements for implementation.

Chapter five focuses on the summary, conclusion and recommendations are provided in this chapter based on the study carried out.

1.7 Definition of Terms

Civil Service: The body of government officials who are employed in civil occupations that are neither political nor judicial.

Pension: A gratuity paid by government regularly as benefit due to a person in consideration of past services.

Retired: to live employment especially on reaching a pensionable age.

Retirement: The state of being retired. The portion of one’s life after.