Executive Secretary of Pension Transitional Arrangements Directorate (PTAD), Dr Chioma Nnenna Ejikeme, at the weekend said the Agency had addressed and transformed Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS) in several ways to the benefits of pensioners.
According to her, PTAD has liquidated the inherited arrears of pension belonging to ex- workers of moribund and distressed establishments and Companies across the country.
Dr Chioma Ejikeme made the disclosure at the South East Stakeholders Engagement Forum held in Awka Anambra state.
She said prior to PTAD, the management of DBS as the old pension scheme had bad reputation which the new had cleaned up.
Ejikeme said government was flooded with allegations of misappropriation of pension funds and negligence of pensioners welfare and malfeasance.
She said that before the PTAD, pensioners suffered to get their pensions and there were reports of pensioners sleeping under staircase and floor of pension offices just to get their rightly dues.
Ejikeme also disclosed that PTAD inherited complex scheme that were mismanaged and did not have reliable data and information but today the database and information about pensioners are verifiable.
The PTAD boss said that PTAD inherited 33 percent gratuity arrears of unfunded liability and today they have resolved all of them .
“Over the last nine years PTAD has worked hard to address the challenges of DBS and it has transformed the management of DBS in several ways where the pensioners can be proud to be senior senior and receive their pension as at when due.
“Our journey from field verifications, mobile verifications, to putting together a solid database of pensioners, benefit computation, ensuring the regular payment of monthly pensions and paying long overdue pension arrears to pensioners, has been a progressive one filled with creativity, dedication, commitment, persistence and resulting in milestone achievements”
“Complete liquidation of the 126 months outstanding liabilities due to ex-workers of Nigeria Reinsurance Corporation
Complete payment of the 219 months of inherited liabilities to Ex-workers of New Nigeria Newspaper Limited ,Complete payment of the 100 months of inherited liabilities to Ex-workers of NICON Insurance Complete payment of the 96 months of inherited liabilities to Ex-workers of Delta Steel Company (DSC)
Implemented the 9.7% increment to Ex-PHCN workers with attendant arrears paid
“Payment of a total of 48 months of the 84 months inherited arrears owed NITEL/MTEL pensioners, leaving a balance of 36 months for complete liquidation. With these payments, we are glad to inform you that PTAD has completely liquidated the inherited unfunded liabilities of all the Defunct/Privatized Agencies handed over to PTAD in 2017, with the exception of NITEL/MTEL with a balance of 36 months, which we are fully committed to liquidating”she said.
Ejikeme also disclosed that PTAD has launched the “I AM Alive” Confirmation Solution and successfully completed the Pilot Phase where it tested the application on 50,000 randomly-selected pensioners from the four (4) Operational Departments and the six (6) Geo-political zones.
“Furthermore, as we did with the Civil Service Pensioners, PTAD is currently carrying out the re-computation exercise on thousands of files in the Parastatals Pension Department, with a view to resolving their deluge of complaints.
We have held meetings with representatives of Federal Parastatals and Private Sector Pensioners Association of Nigeria (FEPPAN), The Electricity Sector Retiree Welfare Association (ESREWA), and Concerned Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) pensioners to inform them of the outcome of the Back-End Computation Project carried out for the defunct PHCN pensioners under PTAD. At the end of the meetings, all the parties agreed that the implementation of the outcome should take effect from June 2023 payroll, which we have done”
“May I also use this opportunity to continue to sensitize our pensioners against patronizing pension fraudsters. They seem to have kicked off their activities again as we are beginning to get reports of pensioners being called by people pretending to be PTAD Staff and soliciting funds from pensioners to enable their entitlements be paid. No staff of PTAD will call or send any message to you requesting for payment or ask you to call a certain phone number before your arrears or gratuity will be paid” she said.
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