Pension payment now seamless, corruption-free — PTAD

Corruption and other unethical practices causing tales of woe especially omission of names on payroll, falsification of records, delayed payments, improper storage of records and manual imputation of records among others, until recently, characterized public pension scheme in Nigeria especially the Defined Pension Scheme.

The establishment of Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate, PTAD, in 2014 has seemingly put paid to most of these gaps and lapses effectively putting smiles on the faces of retirees.

The zeal, commitment and passion brought to bear in the handling of the affairs of the Directorate in the past nine years by the leadership, especially the incumbent Executive Secretary, Dr Chioma Ejikeme, has earned PTAD the applause of pensioners.

Speaking in Calabar during a two-day Stakeholders’ Engagement with pensioners in the South-South zone, Dr Ejikeme said the adoption of technology in the payment of pensions has made it near impossible for pension funds to be mismanaged or embezzled as was the case in the past.

Dr Ejikeme said since it’s inception,PTAD has consistently worked towards improvement in the payment of Defined Benefits Scheme, DBS, to retirees.

“You may recall that the Defined Benefits Scheme in the past was fraught with allegations of fraud, corruption and inefficiencies prior to the establishment of PTAD. However, with the controls and processes that have been put in place, it is difficult, if not near impossible, to mismanage any aspect of the pension scheme as at today.”

She stated that through hard work invested in PTAD in the past nine years, pension payment is now seamless not withstanding the enormity of challenges inherited by the Directorate at inception.

“You will appreciate the sheer volume of overhaul that PTAD has had to carry out in order to get to where we are today. Our journey from field verifications, mobile verifications, to putting together a solid database of pensioners, benefit computation, ensuring the regular payment of monthly pensions and paying long overdue pension arrears to pensioners, has been a progressive one filled with creativity, dedication, commitment, persistence and milestone achievements.”

Dr Ejikeme declared that PTAD has carried out a series of activities which include the “completion of the payment of arrears arising from the consequential adjustment to pensions as a result of the increase in minimum wage of April 2019 to the four operational departments in the Directorate, complete liquidation of the 126 months outstanding liabilities due to ex-workers of Nigeria Reinsurance Corporation, Complete payment of the 219 months of inherited liabilities to ex-workers of New Nigeria Newspaper Limited, complete payment of the 100 months of inherited liabilities to ex-workers of NICON Insurance.

“Two weeks ago, we paid another 15 months arrears to 5,907 pensioners out of the outstanding 63 months of the inherited unfunded pension liabilities. The remaining half of the NITEL/MTEL pensioners will get their 15 months arrears soon.”

N610bn paid to pensioners

She declared that cumulatively, pensioners have been paid the sum of N610 billion within the past nine years, saying: “N7 billion death benefit have also been paid to 3,832 next-of-kin of pensioners who passed away in the last nine years, while over N42 billion pension arrears had been paid to 161,121 pensioners.”

She revealed that the “NITEL/MTEL pensioners who were left out of payment of pensions and retirement benefits since 2005 were captured by PTAD in 2018 following the directive from President Muhammadu Buhari who instructed that they should be paid their gratuities and pension.

“NITEL/MTEL staff were owed arrears of pension for 77 months and out of those months, PTAD has paid arrears of 48 months and we are hopeful that in the next few months, every one on the payroll would be paid up-to-date.”

She noted that NITEL/MTEL pensioners gulp about one billion naira monthly being the highest pension wage bill and appealed to the pensioners to be patient while funds are sourced to pay the remaining 31 months arrears.

She lamented that NITEL/MTEL had their pension scheme where money was deducted from workers’ salaries but not paid into government purse but with the magnanimity of President Buhari, the retirees of those agencies are being paid pension, which she said is a clear case of working in UAC and getting paid at Liver Brothers.”

Dr Ejikeme said eleven offices have been opened across the country to attend to the needs of pensioners and called on those who were not captured in the verification exercise done early this year, to ensure they are verified to be included in the payroll.

She expressed gratitude to President Muhammadu Buhari for the support he has given to PTAD enabling it to completely liquidate the inherited unfunded liabilities of all the Defunct/Privatised agencies handed over to it.

PTAD, she stressed, has trained Pension Desk Officers, PDOs, of the various institutions and organisations where pensioners retired from, as well as pension union executives from the six geo-political zones to use online solution to assist pensioners who are unable to carry out the I Am Alive confirmation on their own.

Several pensioners who spoke during the programme, eulogised PTAD for “wiping away” their tears and bringing joy to them through regular payment of their pensions.

Mr. Benjamin Etta, National Vice-Chairman of the National Union of Pensioners, NUP, said it is difficult to convince his members that PTAD workers are not from the moon.