PTAD discovers 4000 ghost police pensioners

Executive secretary, Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), Sharon Ikeazor, on Monday disclosed that the agency discovered about 4000 ghost pensioners of the Nigeria Police Force.

Ikeazor made the disclosure at the ongoing verification exercise for pensioners that retired from Federal Government agencies and parastatals in Edo and Delta states.

She said out of the 20,000 police pensioners on the pay roll, 16,000 pensioners were verified and biometric data captured.

According to Ikeazor, when

we took on police pension, we had over 20,000 pensioners on our pay roll, by the time we concluded the verification, we got 16,000 pensioners and that is lot of savings for the government, as 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 taken 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 and Prisons Service and the Parastatals pensions. What we are doing now is the parastatals verification, which is made up of over 260 government agencies,” she said.

The ongoing verification will be the last to be conducted by the agency, as it is going to have a credible secured database for pensioners, she said.

She also disclosed that the verification of pensioners would be decentralised so that pensioners do not suffer going to Abuja for future verification.

The PTAD boss, who assured that the Federal Government would continue to pay pensions regularly, said plans were underway to reduce the stress associated with receiving monthly pension by pensioners in the state.

She explained that the agency was working in tandem with the Ministry of Health to ensure pensioners have access to medical care through registration in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

She pointed out that verification team was currently on the field going from houses and hospitals to verify sick pensioners.

Some of the pensioners, who spoke with newsmen, commended the PTAD for the exercise, saying the process had been impressive, as all they wanted was to get their pensions as and when due.