PTAD verifies 6000 pensioners in Abuja

The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) has concluded the verification of the last set of Civil Service Pensioners under the Defined Benefit Scheme.
The exercise, which commenced on Monday across several centres in Abuja, witnessed the verification of 6000 pensioners.

It could be recall that the exercise began in 2016; and has seen the verification of all pensioners across the six get-political zones of the country.
But this last batch of the exercise holds simultaneously in the Federal Capital Territory, Nasarawa and Niger states.

According to the directorate, verification for police, customs, immigration and prisons pensions department have all been concluded.
Speaking on Tuesday in one of the verification centers, the Executive Secretary of PTAD, Barr. Sharon Ikeazor, said pensioners were coming out with high expectations because they know that PTAD will meet their expectations.

Ikeazor reiterated that the essence of this verification was for the agency to build credible database.
She said, “In the course of our verifications they are few pensioners who were taken off the payroll but with this verification genuine pensioners are being put back into the payroll.

We are verifying 6000 pensioners for FCT, and this is the last verification exercise for the civil servants under the old scheme called the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS).
We started this verification in 2016; and have gone round the states in the country with Nasarawa, Niger and Abuja being the last batch of the exercise.

They were also pensioners who were taken off the payroll due to lack of BVN in their accounts. These pensioners are now bringing their BVN; and we are computing them in our database.”

The PTAD boss said that those who are on the agency’s payroll will receive their pension before December 25th.
However, she said that those they have just verified who have never been in the directorate’s payroll will have to wait for about three months for their papers to be duly verified.

According to Ikeazor, “their documents will to go through recommendation, so we are talking about two to three months because the Auditors will have to take a look at it as our system is based on check and balances.”
She said, “verification is not automatic payment. We inherited data from the former head of service for pension. A lot of our pensioners were being called by fraudsters demanding for money before their pension.

They will give them their correct names, they will give them their correct account number and tell them they are about to pay their pension and they should pay some amount and we are making it clear to the pensioners that these are not PTAD staff, these are remnants from the last office that used to be.

After realizing this, we started giving out fraud alert with telephone numbers to call and report these fraudsters. At every verification, we have security agents on ground.”
Some of the pensioners, who commended PTAD for the exercise, said that they almost fell into the hands of fraudsters, who requested them to pay money.

The verification of pensioners is aimed at creating an accurate, credible and digitized database of pensioners under the DBS.
It will also eliminate duplicate payments and non-eligible pensioners from the payroll.

Mathew Dadiya, Abuja