Tony Osauzo and Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
No fewer than 4,000 non-existing pensioners have been uncovered out of the 20,000 police pensioners inherited by the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD).
Executive Secretary of PTAD, Sharon Ikeazor, disclosed this in Benin City at the directorate’s on-going pensioners verification and biometric data capturing for pensioners who retired from federal government agencies and parastatals in Edo and Delta states.
She assured that good time awaits pensioners once the verification was finalised as they would no longer be made to pass through the rigours of physical presence for verification, adding that the directorate was planning to decentralise its operations across the states instead of pensioners going to Abuja.
“When we took on police pension, we had over 20,000 pensioners on our payroll, by the time we concluded the verification, we got 16,000 pensioners and that is a lot of savings for government and the genuine pensioners were now being paid.
“The same for civil service pensions, by the time we concluded the verification, we had a lot of savings for government because those who were irregularly put on that pay roll by the last administration have been take off and those genuine pensioners who were dropped, were replaced so it is the same exercise we are doing now.
“PTAD has four pension departments that it inherited when it was set up, the police pension, the civil service pension, the Customs, Immigration, Prisons Service and the parastatals pensions. What we are doing now is the parastatals’ verification which is made up of over 260 government agencies.