SPGA to reach out to 6,000 pensioners
Published on: Friday, May 15, 2015
Kota Kinabalu: The Sabah Government Pensioners Association (SPGA) wants to reach out to the 6,000 civil servants expected to retire within the next five years.Its President, Datuk Wilfred Lingham said it's the duty of the association to help the pensioners by looking after their welfare and wellbeing.In this respect, he urged the government retirees to join the SPGA during the five-day Membership Drive programme which began on May 11 at Maksak Hall.ADVERTISEMENT He said this year SPGA aims to achieve a membership figure of 4,000 by the end of next year. "This is the second membership drive organised by SPGA, the current members now is 2,009 and we hope to reach our target to get non-members to register and those due to retire this year or next year in this 23-month period," he said.Lingham said that, some of the pensioners face financial issues when they retire because they will not be able to cover their monthly expenditures with the monthly pension which is only 60 per cent of their former monthly salaries.SPGA has been taking the initiative to help them with economic instability which is in line with its slogan 'Retire with Dignity'.ADVERTISEMENT "Due to this, we will arrange seminars and invite speakers from various organisations to give speech on financial management, health care and how to make use of their time when they retire," he said.According to Lingham, SPGA had launched District Coordinating Communities (DCC) in 13 areas throughout Sabah such as, Sandakan, Tawau, Lahad Datu, Semporna, Kudat, Ranau, Keningau, Tambunan, Beaufort, Tenom, Papar, Kota Belud and Penampang.
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Most of the government pensioners will return to their hometown when they retire to work on their lands and they hardly catch up with the latest news. The idea of the DCC is to get in touch with the pensioners staying at the rural area of Sabah.He said that in order to encourage the DCC to recruit members, SPGA will award RM1,000 as an incentive to the DCC that manages to recruit more than 50 members by the end of this year and 30 per cent from the RM55 fee from each member will be given back.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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For the ongoing programme to recruit membership SPGA has organised a health programme in Tenom on May 16 and 17.Meanwhile, he also hoped that SPGA can play a more active role in the 'Yayasan Persara' that was launched this year by the Prime Minister and become a channel of communication between the pensioners and government.