PTAD Pays N7bn As Pension Gratuities In Two Years

The Executive Secretary, Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), Dr Chioma Ejikeme, has said that over N7 billion has been paid as pension gratuities in the last two years.

Dr Chioma revealed this at the weekend at the end of a two-day maiden stakeholder’s forum for North Central held in Ilorin.

The programme was themed: “Pensioner’s welfare is our priority”.

“In 2020, commencement of an expanded re-validation and re-computation exercise was approved. This was in a bid to on-board verified pensioners not on payroll, clear all outstanding pension arrears and resolve all complaints of short payments and outstanding gratuities for the Civil Service Pensioners and their Next of Kin (NoK)..

“At the end of the project, the Directorate was able to review, compute, re-compute and pay over N7bn to over 24,000 pensioners. The computation exercise is ongoing,” she noted.

Ejikeme also said the post verification validation for the Parastatal Pension Department is ongoing. Over 21,000 unverified pensioners were dropped from the payroll in October 2020.

So far, over 2,500 of those dropped in October have been verified, restored to the payroll with the attendant arrears paid. The on boarding of verified and not on payroll is ongoing, she added.

She further noted that the PTDA has received £26,505,862.97, which were pension funds under investment with Investment Management Limited, United Kingdom.