Prior to the emergence of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) in the management of old pension scheme also known as the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS), the federal government was flooded with allegations of misappropriation of pension funds, neglect of pensioner’s welfare, and other malfeasance.
The public outcry led to widely publicised public hearings and criminal proceedings against suspected pension thieves.
Before then, pensioners suffered to get their pensions, and there were reports of pensioners sleeping under staircases and on floors of pension offices. Verification was hard on pensioners and many suffered from the stress of crowds, queuing for long hours, among others.
Many pensioners did not receive their monthly pensions as and when due while others were owed years of pension arrears and gratuity. Similarly, many Next of Kins (NOKs) of deceased pensioners had not been paid death benefits for years, some up to 10 years or more, after the death of the officer.
In some cases, pensioners had to pay money to get their pensions or arrears, as angry pensioners invaded the offices of the Head of Service of the Federation(HOCSF) over non-payment of pension.
Against this backdrop, PTAD was established in August 2013 to consolidate and manage pensions under the DBS for pensioners who would not transit into the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) introduced in 2004 during the pension reform.
PTAD, an agency of the federal government, is regulated by the National Pension Commission (PenCom) and established in compliance with the provisions of the Pension Reform Act(PRA) of 2004, repealed and re-enacted in 2014 which provides the agency the power to consolidate old pension’s offices
Saddled with the responsibility to cleanse the old pension scheme, the Directorate categorise pensioners in the old scheme under Parastatals Pension Department (PaPD), Police Pension Department (PPD), Civil Service Pension Department (CSPD) and Customs Immigration and Prisons Pension Department (CIPPD).
In total, PTAD inherited 268,897 pensioners on the payrolls of the old pension offices at inception.
While it took a lot of cleaning to eject over 50,000 ghost pensioners on the payroll, a total of N754 billion in monthly pensions have so far been paid from January 2015 to December 2022.
Speaking on the steps taken by the directorate to provide better services to people under the DBS, the executive secretary of the directorate, Dr. Chioma Ejikeme, in a presentation titled: ‘the New Narrative for Pension Administration for the DBS’ at the 2023 Stakeholders Engagement, South East Zone disclosed that, over 50,000 complaints were inherited by PTAD from the Office of the Head of the Civil Service while over 30,000 qualified pensioners were not on the payroll.
To her, “PTAD also inherited unfunded liabilities, 33 per cent pension arrears; gratuity and death benefits; disorganised, error-prone manual computation/calculation of pension benefits; lack of adequate/appropriate office space to accommodate walk-in pensioners; inadequate staffing of offices and provision of appropriate technology work tools; poor pension file management leading to damaged records and lost hope; and rude and unruly behaved pensioners.”
Disclosing that PTAD has changed the narrative with the same pensioners telling sweet tales and singing good melodies about the recent pension administration.
Dr. Ejikeme said, PTAD has sanitized the DBS with major achievements over the last nine years with consolidation of old pension offices, payroll due diligence, onboarding process to PTAD pension payroll, and determination of inherited liabilities.
She further stated that, the overall success is not just the result of deploying information technology, more critically; it has been a result of political will and strong support from the current administration and key stakeholders, including strategic and strong leadership at PTAD.
“The narrative has changed due to efficient and effective deployment of available resources and human capital, and the investment in human capital development; creativity, initiative, passion, commitment and empathy of PTAD management and staff; and collaboration and support from pensioners and their union representatives.
“We have worked hard to address challenges and transform the management of the DBS in several significant ways that include management of pensioners’ files and records, validation of pensioners computation and calculation of pension benefits; management of the monthly pension payroll; resolution of pensioners’ complaints; and settlement and payment of 33 per cent pension arrears, death benefits, among others.
“Prior to PTAD, verification was hard on pensioners, and most importantly, there was no database for pensioners after those rigorous and harrowing verification exercises. Verification was held in one or very few centers, making the process long and tedious. Pensioners suffered from the stress of large crowds, queuing for long hours under the scorching sun, with some dying before they are able to access their pension.
This was the nightmare of every pensioner at the time in the country.”
“We deployed mobile verification to ensure no qualified pensioners are left uncaptured. Pensioners that were aged, infirm, sick, or physically challenged were also captured by sending mobile teams to pensioners’ homes, in hospitals among others. Based on this, PTAD Mobile Teams have visited over 80 different cities, towns and villages, and countless hospitals across the entire nation, including every state capital”, she added.
The ES added that, “Since our last stakeholder’s forum for the South-East in Enugu, Enugu State in January 2022, PTAD has carried out a series of activities. We have completed payment of arrears arising as a result of the consequential adjustment to pensions as a result of the increase in the minimum wage of April 2019 to the four operational departments in the Directorate; completed liquidation of the 126 months outstanding liabilities due to ex-workers of Nigeria Reinsurance Corporation; and completed payment of the 219 months of inherited liabilities to ex-workers of New Nigeria Newspaper Limited.
“We also completed payment of the 100 months of inherited liabilities to ex-workers of NICON Insurance; completed payment of the 96 months of inherited liabilities to ex-workers of Delta Steel Company (DSC); implemented the 9.7 per cent increment to Ex-PHCN workers with attendant arrears paid; made payment of a total of 48 months of the 84 months inherited arrears owed NITEL/MTEL pensioners, leaving a balance of 36 months for complete liquidation. With these payments, we are glad to inform you that PTAD has completely liquidated the inherited unfunded liabilities of all the Defunct/Privatized Agencies handed over to PTAD in 2017, with the exception of NITEL/MTEL with a balance of 36 months, which we are fully committed to liquidating.”
Recently, she stressed that PTAD commissioned a mechanised filing system, put in place to safely store pensioners’ physical verification and departmental files, adding that, this is apart from securing and archiving these documents, as this device will make it faster and easier to recall pensioners’ files to reconcile and resolve any complaint.
According to the ES, the Directorate received £26.5million repatriated pension funds from the United Kingdom in 2021 while it also fully recovered pension assets with insurance underwriters.
Dr. Ejikeme said the pension assets were recovered from insurance underwriters namely AIICO Insurance Plc, and African Alliance Insurance PLC.
She pointed out that the icing on the cake was the receipt of the repatriated sum of £26,505,862.97 from the United Kingdom, which was pension funds under investment with Crown Agents Investment Management Limited, United Kingdom.
She revealed that the funds were used to settle part of the accrued arrears owed to its pensioners from the defunct agencies with Mr President’s approval worth over N120 billion.
She further disclosed that the Government, under the auspices of the Federal Ministry of Health established a Ministerial committee to look into the issue of providing Health Insurance for senior citizens in the country.
“PTAD and representatives of the Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP) were members of this Committee. This initiative has yielded positive results as PTAD has reached an advanced stage with consultations with the National Health Insurance Authority for the commencement of Health Insurance for our pensioners”.
PTAD director, Parastatals Pension Department (PaPD), Mr. Kabiru Yusuf on his part, noted that, ghost pensioners have been eliminated from the system.
He said, they carried out two major removals of ineligible people from the payroll of parastatal pensioners.
“The first one was done in 2019 when we did an assignment with the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System to ascertain people who have valid BVN and those who do not. When we did the exercise, we removed 5,834 people from the payroll. The monthly pension implication of the people removed is N287.8 million.
“When we did the removal, we created a complaint resolution channel for those who have genuine BVN to send their complaints to us. After the complaints came in, those that we have restored back on payroll from 2019 to date are 2,902 and we paid them N175.8 million and this is the savings we have made from paying pensions to those who do not have valid documentations but continue to be on payroll.”
Yusuf further disclosed that other departments such as Police Pension, Civil Service Pension and Customs Immigration and Prisons Pension have also eliminated ghost pensioners and saved billions of naira too.
Yusuf pointed out that PTAD inherited 268,897 pensioners on the payrolls of the old pension offices at inception. Through verification, PTAD has created a centralized database, complete with pensioners’ personal information, biometrics, and career documents. The database is the first of its kind in DBS history and as such its integrity is paramount.
Pensioners Assessment Of Old Pension Scheme
With respect to the administration of pensions under the DBS, pension reform has been a success, the national president, Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Comrade Godwin Ikechukwu Abumisi said.
According to him, pensioners have never had it as good as they did under the last administration.
He stated that, PTAD paid them their monthly pension and paid adjustments arising from increases in salary particularly from increases as a result of the 2019 minimum wage.
“We are very grateful and happy with PTAD. Some Nigerians say so many things about former President Buhari wrongly. But we pensioners are very happy with him because he took care of us. We are hoping that the incoming administration of President Tinubu will also do as much as he has done for us and even better. We are optimistic because while he was governor of Lagos state, he took very good care of pensioners”.
Speaking specifically on what they look forward to, he said: “First of all, we want President Tinubu to continue payment of monthly pension as at when due. Secondly, we want him to address the remaining backlog of gratuities and pay. Thirdly, we want him to sit back and think about the position of state governors who don’t pay pensions. The problem we have with the payment of pension in Nigeria is that state governors don’t pay. Many of them are owing about 27 months’ arrears of monthly pension. That is more than two years. They don’t care about the pensioners. Their position is that pensioners are deadwood and we are not deadwood. We are alive. We want the President Tinubu to look at this.
“And you say to yourself, how much is this pension? There are some pensioners whose take home pension is only N5,000, yet state governors cannot pay. I don’t know whether I would call it hatred for pensioners. but I know that many of them are praying to advance to old age, yet they cannot treat the aged well”.
Speaking from the Northwest, NUP vice president, Northwest, Mohammed Abba Dakande on his part said, since the coming of PTAD, they have found an agency that interacted with them in love.
“PTAD is doing their best to see that all that has to do with pension under the old scheme is in order. The have eliminated fraud in the system. Issues of verification have been simplified such that those who cannot attend because they are either too old or feeble are visited in their locality by the agency.
“PTAD staff travel long kilometers to meet pensioners for verification unlike in the past when we are the ones that travel to meet government agencies in charge of pension”.
The national vice president, Southwest, NUP, Elder Ayo Kumapayi describe the immediate past president as the most pension friendly president.
“He is the only president that adhered fully to the constitution as it affects pensioners by way of reviewing pension every five years or at any time when wages are increased. He did it consistently and by the time he left he was not owing federal civil servant of state pension any federal share of pension. There was a time when NUP made move to give him a special Award for his performance on pension but unfortunately, he couldn’t grant the opportunity before he left.
“What do we mean by harmonization? Let me give you an example of Inspector-Generals of police who retired having same number of years of service and same grade level. One is earning about N200,000 per month while the other one is earning about N500,000. What the harmonization will do is to bridge the gap by correcting the structure. This is something that NUP have agitated for quite a long time, We have retired permanent secretaries who are earning N27,000 pension per month whereas we have retired permanent secretary on the same level, same step and same number of years of service earning N500,000 per month.
“The executive secretary has started the process and we are vert happy. She is also working on pension review. The last exercise was done four years ago and it will be due again in 2024 and she has commenced the process with the income and wages commission for the review to happen. So, generally I will say that federal pensioners have never had it so good under PTAD.”
Speaking of their expectations of the new administration, he said: “We are looking forward to President Tinubu’s administration. We believe he will be pension friendly too. He should do everything within his power to improve on the welfare of pensioners in the country. We are not asking for too much. We are senior citizens. We used the best time of our life serving this country and we should be rewarded.”
