Pension directorate delists 21,227 unverified pensioners from Nigerian govt’s payroll

The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) said it would expunge 21,227 unverified parastatal pensioners currently on the directorate’s payroll and who had not shown up for verification with effect from October.

It made the disclosure in a statement issued on Friday and titled ‘PTAD Removes Unverified Parastatals Pensioners from Its Payroll.’

PTAD said the list of the affected pensioners had been handed to the pension unions, associations, agencies and institutes in July for dissemination and sensitisation of their members and to give feedback to the directorate.

Chioma Ejikeme, PTAD’s Executive Secretary, noted that the affected parastatal pensioners were those that did not appear at the directorate’s 2019 Parastatal Pensions Department (PaPD) nationwide and in-house verification rounds.

She went further to say they did not also submitted documentary request for mobile verification nor registered as diaspora pensioners.

According to Ejikeme, in 2019, a-well publicised PaPD verification exercise for all federally funded parastatals, institutes and agencies under the Defined Benefit Scheme was carried out across the six geopolitical zones of the country including Lagos and Abuja.

Conducive centres situated at strategic and accessible locations were provided in each zone, she said, to carry out the exercise for an average period of two weeks.

“A total of 32 centres were provided for the exercise which ran from April to November 2019,” she added.

She observed that the programme which spanned months saw the National Assembly, particularly the House of Assembly Committee on Pension and Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service provide legislative oversight support all through.

Read also: 331,003 lose jobs, withdraw N117bn from pension accounts in 3 months

Anti-fraud agencies including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, the Department of State Service and the Police were present to monitor and offer support for the service, she affirmed.

“At the end of the verification exercise, a total of 76,064 parastatals pensioners were verified and documented.

“In addition, the directorate organised a further mop-up verification exercise, through continuous in-house verification for those that could not be verified during the field exercise in PTAD offices in Lagos and headquarters, Abuja where a total of 3,150 additional pensioners were verified and documented.

“Documented diaspora pensioners and pensioners who requested for mobile verification, but have not yet been verified, have also been added to the documented pensioners pending when it would be convenient for them to be verified.

“After one year of the completion of the exercise, it is logical to remove those that could not be verified and documented in order for the directorate to maintain a credible payroll.”

Ejikeme said PTAD had issued some guidelines which bonafide pensioners among the identified 21,227 pensioners with genuine documents should follow to ensure their names were not removed from the payroll.

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