THE Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate has said it will remove 21,227 unverified Parastatal Pensioners that are on the Directorate’s payroll, and have not presented themselves for verification, with effect from October 2020.
The Executive Secretary, PTAD, Chioma Ejikeme, said the affected Parastatal Pensioners were those that did not turn up for the Directorate’s 2019 Parastatal Pensions Department Nationwide and In-House Verification exercises.
They did not also submit documentary request for mobile verification or register as Diaspora Pensioners.
The ES recalled that in 2019, a well-publicised verification exercise for all federally funded Parastatals, Agencies and Institutes under the Defined Benefit Scheme was conducted throughout the six geo-political zones of the country, including Lagos and Abuja.
In each zone, including Lagos and Abuja, conducive centres located at strategic and accessible locations were provided to carry out the exercise for an average period of two weeks, The Point learnt.
She explained that a total of 32 centres were provided for the exercise, which ran from April to November, 2019.
During the programme that lasted for many months, the National Assembly, especially House Committee on Pension and Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service, provided legislative oversight support throughout the exercise.
She said the Pension Unions were also part of the stakeholders that mobilised and monitored their members for the exercise.
Furthermore, the PTAD boss noted that Government Anti-fraud Agencies such as EFCC, ICPC, DSS and Police Force were on ground to monitor and provide support for the exercise.
Ejikeme said at the end of the verification exercise, a total of 76,064 parastatals pensioners were verified and documented.
In addition, she noted that the Directorate organised a further mop-up verification exercise, through continuous In-House verification for those that could not be verified during the field exercise in PTAD offices in Lagos and Headquarters, Abuja, where a total of 3,150 additional pensioners were verified and documented.
After one year of the completion of the exercise, the PTAD boss said it was logical to remove those that could not be verified and documented in order for the Directorate to maintain a credible payroll.
She said, “A total of 21,227 names are to be removed from the payroll with effect from October 2020.
“However, in view of the COVID-19 lockdown, PTAD has released some guidelines which bonafide pensioners amongst the identified 21,227 pensioners with authentic documents should follow to ensure that their names are not removed from the payroll.”
