Custom, other retirees express satisfaction
The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) has, after its verification exercise for retired Police officials, discovered 600 pensioners that had never received any payment since retirement.
Nellie Mayshak, director-general of PTAD, who disclosed this to journalists in Lagos, described the development as unjust.
Consequently, the Directorate promised that these retirees were going to be paid all their money immediately.
“On the good side, there were 600 pensioners that had never received any payment since they retired, which is unjust. So, we are quickly going to pay those people. Through the process, we have seen that some people are underpaid while some are overpaid, and so we are adjusting all that,” she said.
Presently, the verification exercise for Customs, Immigration and Prisons pensioners is ongoing. The exercise is being carried out in 13 centres across the country – Rivers, Edo, Cross River, Enugu, Imo, Lagos, Oyo, Kano, Sokoto, Bauchi, FCT, Kwara, and Benue.
The objective of these verification exercises include to establish a credible and authentic database of pensioners under the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS), to eliminate ghost workers and duplicate payments, and among others, to regularise anomalies such as over payments and under payments.
However, retirees from Customs, Immigration and Prisons have expressed satisfaction over the orderly manner the exercise is being carried by PTAD.
Emmanuel Adeeji Ogunbode, chairman, Association of Retired Senior Officers of Custom, said, “I don’t know how I can quantify this exercise in the history of verification of retired custom officers. This is the best. PTAD has provided all we need – food, chairs, canopies and others. It is very orderly, comfortable and smooth. I thank you PTAD. We are well satisfied and I thank God that PTAD has changed everything.”
The PTAD commenced verification of all pensioners in 2014, with the first group being the Police pensioners from December 8, 2014, to March 2015. Other pension groups to be verified include the Parastatal Pensioners and the Civil Service Pensioners.
