PTAD Puts Monthly Pension Bill At N7.8bn, Recovers N16bn Assets
The Pension Transition Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) said wednesday that it recovered cash and non-cash assets of over N16 billion from the Board of Trustees ( BoT) and insurance underwriters.
This is even as N7.8 billion is currently paid out monthly to 237,000 verified pensioners in its database under the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS).
PTAD Executive Secretary, Sharon Ikeazor, who gave the figures in Abuja, said the cash component of N6.9 billion of the N16 billion is domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) designated Recovery Account, created solely for the remittance of such funds.
She disclosed that about 25 properties belonging to the federal government in the custody of Nicon Insurance PLC had been recovered and handed over to the Federal Ministry of Powers, Works and Housing for proper assessment and valuation..
On number of pensioners under the DBS, Ikeazor said the Directorate, in the course of continuously sanitising its data and records, weeded out 22,000 pensioners who did not show up for the verification exercise and another 19,000 who had issues with their Bank Verification Number (BVN) .
While not foreclosing their reinstatement, she said it can only be reversed, “if they sort out the BVN issue with their banks.”
She stated that the 237,000 number is not sacrosanct, adding that “the figure may go up slightly as some pensioners are about to be included in the payroll.”
On verified civil service pensioners, she said PTAD had successfully added 7,969 of them on the payroll, adding that they were verified in the South-west and North-central in the fourth quarter of 2017.
She said:” Before this addition, over 19,500 verified Civil Service pensioners from the North-west, South-east, North-east and South-south had been reinstated and paid their arrears. Also the computation of benefits for over 5,000 verified civil service pensioners is ongoing. This will conclude the payrolling of all verified civil service pensioners.”
