Over N96bn paid to pensioners in one year - PTAD

...to recover N44bn from underwriters

The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), on Wednesday, said over N96 billion had been paid to pensioners across all operational departments, including arrears and gratuities between July 2019 and August 2020.

The directorate, however, regrets that legacy funds and assets to the tune of over N44 billion, some of which are domiciled outside Nigeria, are still in the custody of 12 insurance underwriters which the directorate is working assiduously with to recover.

Chioma Ejikeme, executive secretary, PTAD, disclosed this at a press conference in Abuja in Wednesday. While giving a breakdown on the total money paid to pensioners in the last 14 months, Ejikeme said over

N77 billion was paid to 244,643 pensioners as at July 2020.

The executive secretary said 87,842 pensioners were paid arrears and gratuities of over N19 billion, while N670 million was paid to 418 Next of Kin of deceased pensioners.

“The above payments include the balance of 33 percent arrears for the parastatal pensioners, which had been outstanding since 2010 and was fully paid to the pensioners and Noks in November/ December 2019,” she said.

Following its successful conclusion of the nationwide Parastatals Pensioners’ Verification Exercise in November 2019, Ejikeme said a total of 21,227 pensioners on payroll were found to have not been verified, while informing that PTAD had sent the list of the affected pensioners to the pension unions and agencies to enable those who were on the list and alive, make themselves available for verification.

She also informed that deceased and unresponsive pensioners on the list would be removed from the payroll from October 2020.

She further disclosed that in 2019, PTAD collaborated with Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) on Bank Verification Number (BVN) Authentication, which led to the suspension of 5,834 pensioners from the payroll.

“However, 2,416 of those removed have been restored after undergoing positive review and validation,” she said.

The executive secretary assured that PTAD was working assiduously on the recovery of the legacy funds and assets, saying the Directorate had got positive responses from the custodians that the funds would be recovered.