Yemis Izuora
The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) has said that it has expunged about 15,000 non existent pensioners from the payroll.
The PTAD which was established to manage pensions under the Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS) has also commenced Nationwide Biometric Capture and Verification of Pensioners in a bid to sanitise the system.
Godson Ukpevo, Director civil Service Pension Department of the agency giving scorecard of the agency further disclosed that field verification of 18,332 police pensioners has been concluded and that an interim report indicated existence of over 3,000 ghost pensioners.
The Director stated that despite resistance experienced by the agency to return to the discredited DBS it has concluded plans to commence verification of civil service pensioners.
He said, “PTAD has significant improvement in relationship with key stakeholders such as the supervisory and regulatory authorities and the unions, stronger collaboration with EFCC, ICPC and the Police tackling fraud”.
Ukpevo also informed that as part of its mandate to make the system fraud free, all pensioner data are captured and can be centrally accessed and has automated benefit re-computation for all pensioners with enhanced database security.