Conduct credible verification for pensioners, PTAD tells state govts

The Executive Secretary of Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), Barr. Sharon Ikeazor has called on state governments across the federation to take a cue from the ongoing nationwide biometric verification exercise for pensioners to conduct the same standard for local and state government’s pensioners in order to cut cost.

Ikeazor said that most of the pension database contained what she described as fraud and fake beneficiaries.

Ikeazor made the call on Wednesday at the Agege verification Centre in Lagos while supervising the ongoing exercise.

She said that the governments at the state level need to take the bold step to conduct a very credible verification exercise that would create a new database for the authentic pensioners in line with PTAD’s procedures, adding that “it will reduced their liabilities.”

The PTAD boss noted that the directorate inherited a payroll which was full of fraud but explained that their effort at the ongoing nationwide verification exercise has clean up the frauds.

She said, “We inherited payroll we didn’t know there was fraud, but we are cleaning up the system. In the course of doing this our verification, we have seen people who are in grade level two and are earning over N190,000 in a month! How much was their salary in a month when they were in service? So these are some of the fraud and we are cleaning it gradually.

“States are responsible for states pensions, they collected bailout funds and Paris refund running into billions what have done with it and every month states come to federal to collect allocations; State governments are responsible for local government and states pensions while the federal government is responsible for only central and federal pensioners, therefore, you can’t expect the federal to bear the burdens of local governments pensions.”

She attributed the large turnout of people at the ongoing verification Centres in Lagos to lack of confidence on the states pension system.

She therefore, called on government of the 36 states to carry out a honest verification programme that will capture only the genuine pensioners and do away with the ghost Once they hear federal government is holding an exercise they will come here thinking is for everybody.

“We have local government retirees who are not entitled to federal pension coming thinking they will be captured. Though we are sympathetic, we still have to follow cautiousness,” Ikeazor added.

The Executive Secretary, gave an instance where one of the pensioners complained that fire engulfed her house some years back and that she lost all her documents to the inferno.

“But the concern is that, she was not on our payroll before, so how do we verify that? So she has to go back to her employer to get those required documents for her to be verified because the essence of verification is to ascertain documents that proves your eligibility,” she narrated.

The process for the verification, Ikeazor said, “though very tasking, but it worth it because they come with their documents and we open personnel file for each and every one of them after capturing their full information on our database.”

“Despite the announcement and publicity on the requirements, some of them thought the verification include people from local governments.

I always wish the state governments will take a cue from what PTAD is doing. If they do this biometric exercise in their states, they will know the number of pensioners they have, they will know their liabilities and be able to budget and meet them.

It is doable, it’s not as big as what they are saying; how many pensioners do they have and how many workers compare to the whole federal? So if the federal can do it successfully, they can do it as well,” the Executive Secretary added.

Ikeazor further explained, “If you come to our office you will see the total number of people and how much we are paying; every month N7.5 billion we have 257,000 pensioners presently in our databse, besides, federal permanent secretaries, heads of services and all that are on Contributory Defined Benefit Scheme until PENCOM sorts out their data then we’ll move them back.

On why people preferred to be retained under the old scheme pension scheme, Ikeazor said “That tells you that the old scheme is actually working. But I think the new scheme works better because the old scheme means more burden on the government but the new one, the employees are made to contribute out of their salaries as well because government cannot bear the burdens alone.

The old scheme is that, you are guaranteed your pension by government so government bears the full liability.”

She also disclosed that the old scheme (being manage by PTAD) which stated in 2007, is expected to last between 35 and 40 years.

Mathew Dadiya