Difficulty in accessing the authentic salary structure of ex-workers of Nigerian National Shipping Line (NNSL) has been partly responsible for their delayed verification and enrolment into the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS).
This was contained in a statement released in Abuja over the weekend and signed by the Executive Secretary of Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), Sharon Ikeazor.
The statement was a reaction to the recent statement allegedly issued by representatives of the ex-workers alleging that PTAD had delayed their enrolment into the DBS and thereby frustrating the payment of N3 billion pension arrears owed to its members.
Ikeazor refuted the allegations, adding that the approval for enrolment of the ex-workers of NNSL was received in April 2018, several months after the first set of agencies was approved.
“It is worthy of note, that the Directorate’s pre-verification exercise for pensioners is a long and painstaking inter-ministerial process that requires the collection of data and digitisation of documents,” she stated.
The PTAD boss said pre-verification exercise required getting the authentic salary structure of the agency concerned, which in the case of NNSL wasn’t an easy feat.
She explained further that when PTAD eventually got a response in that regard from the Federal Ministry of Transport, representatives of the Union, whom the Directorate had been actively engaging with all along, declared the document incomplete saying that it didn’t include the salary structure of its Seamen, though PTAD is yet to receive any formal information from Federal Ministry of Transport regarding that allusion.
“Therefore contrary to the unfortunate statement ascribed to certain representatives of Ex-workers of NNSL, preparation for the verification of all treasury funded parastatals, including NNSL, has been completed and the exercise will commence shortly across the country. The programme schedule will also be released by the Directorate soon,” he said.
