Pensioners of the defunct Nigerian National Shipping Line (NNSL) have appealed to the Federal Government to intervene in the payment of the N3 billion pension arrears to 800 retirees since 2008.
The estimated N3 billion is made up of five years pension arrears including 33 per cent on payment made in 2008.
Speaking in Lagos during a protest match by some of the pensioners in Lagos, chairman of the Pensioners Welfare Association (PWA), Mr Patrick Ogobuegwu, also lamented the death of 200 members of the association due to lack of care.
He said the leadership of the group had travelled to Abuja several times to meet the management of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) over the payment with no hope of resolving the issue, despite President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to include them in the Federal Government’s payroll.
Ogobuegwu said PTAD got approval from the Federal Ministry of Finance via a letter dated April 19, 2018 in which the Ministry of Finance directed PTAD to carry out due diligence and verification, including biometric capture of all the beneficiaries before payment of outstanding liabilities and inclusion in the monthly payroll.
“However, 28 months after the approval to be reinstatement to pension payroll, 20 months after all our files were moved to Abuja on June 13, 2017 and 10 months after the federal Ministry of Finance directed PTAD to verify and pay our entitlements, our hopes have been dashed. What has made PTAD to deny us verification and payment as was done to others?” Ogobuegwu wondered.
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