By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) has revealed that over N610 billion has been paid in monthly pensions from January 2015 to December 2021.
This is even as the agency has been explaining how it has recovered huge amount of money including the sum of £36.5 million repatriated fund from United Kingdom and another N17.85bn recovered pension fund.
Executive Secretary of PTAD, Dr. Chioma Ejikeme made this disclosure to State House Correspondents during the Weekly Ministerial Briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team on Thursday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Dr. Ejikeme who used the occasion to provide key updates and strides being made by PTAD in pension service delivery in Nigeria also posited that the agency has achieved 90% of its mandate.
According to her, “through the unwavering support of President Muhammadu Buhari who has been adjudged by pensioners as the most pensioner-friendly President in Nigeria, and administration which has made pension an unwritten first-line charge.
She insists that the able supervision of the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning and PTAD regulator, PenCom, PTAD’s Management Team has been able to achieve the core mandate given to it which includes: the full implementation of the TSA which has ensured the sanctity of pension funds and enshrine transparency in Pension payments.
Others are:
*Regular monthly payments of pension without fail since inception as and when due.
*Payments of long outstanding arrears to pensioners across all the pension departments, most significantly the huge arrears inherited from the defunct/privatized agencies.
*Regular engagements with Pensioners and other stakeholders across all the six geo-political zones, to update pensioners on activities of the directorate.”
Dr. Ejikeme also disclosed that PTAD has repatriated £26.5million from Crown Agents Investment Managers Limited of the United Kingdom being the leftover of the money used to pay British colonial officers, who worked in Nigeria.
According to her, also recovered as legacy pension were assets by the Directorate is the sum of N17.85billion from Boards of Trustees and Underwriters of Treasury Funded Federal Parastatals.
PTAD boss explained that the monies were used to defray the inherited arrears of defunct agencies and to pay-off inherited outstanding pension arrears.
She also disclosed that 303 ex-Biafran Police Officers are now in the pension payroll just as she added, “Well, we call them ‘war affected’, they are the policemen who served on the Biafran side during the Civil War.
“Currently, we have 303 of them on our payroll.”
Speaking more on clearing long outstanding arrears to pensioners across all the pension departments, most significantly, the huge arrears inherited from the defunct privatised agencies”.
Dr. Ejikeme however said PTAD inherited 268,897 pensioners on payrolls of the old Pension Office at inception but through certification, it has created a centralized database complete with pensioners personal information, biometrics and career documents, adding that after verification, as at October 2022, 226,328 pensioners are on the payroll.
The PTAD Executive Secretary also said that 242,894 pensioners were verified between 2015 and 2019 and that 49,409 people were removed from the payroll between 2015 and 2022, while 40,918 were reinstated to payroll between 2015 and 2022.
She mentioned some of the defunct privatized agencies that have been paid to include, NAHCO which has been liquidated and has 661 were paid one-off-payment, ALSCON also liquidated and 1031 pensioners paid in a one-off-payment.
