The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) has announced the complete liquidation of the outstanding 56 months of inherited pension liabilities of defunct NICON Insurance Plc and the balance of 49 months owed ex-workers of Delta Steel Company totaling N7.053 billion. A total of 100 months were inherited NICON Insurance, while Delta Steel had an outstanding of 96 months.
Executive secretary of PTAD, Dr Chioma Ejikeme said 4,691 pensioners benefited from the process. 1,043 pensioners of NICON Insurance benefited from the programme, while backlog of 3,648 pensioners of Delta Steel Company was cleared.
PTAD took over the management of pensions and severance benefit liabilities of ex-workers of some defunct/privatised agencies that were commercial entities of the federal government that were either privatized or liquidated, including Delta Steel Company, NICON Insurance PLC, Savannah Sugar Company, NITEL/MTEL, Aluminum Smelter Company and Nigeria Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO).
The inherited unfunded liabilities for all the defunct agencies at inception was to the tune of over N95 billion. Currently the defunct agencies have a total monthly pension bill of N2.298 billion and an annual bill of over N62 billion representing 44 per cent of the total monthly/annual pension bill of the parastatal pension department.
The agency has settled a total of over N39 billion of the inherited N95 billion, with N3.4 billion of the amount making up one-off payments. “These payments are ongoing,” Ejikeme said at a press conference yesterday.
The organisations were inherited with unpaid monthly pension and with pension arrears ranging from 84 to 219 months while some of the agencies entitled to one-off payments had not been paid.
Dr Ejikeme assured the pensioners from the defunct and privatized agencies that PTAD was working tirelessly to ensure their retirement and severance benefits were paid as soon as possible.
According to the PTAD boss, the directorate has made payment of over N8.5 billion as accumulated arrears of pensions and gratuities to pensioners of the civil service pension department and the next-of-kin of deceased pensioners through the expanded computation project. Payment which she said is still ongoing.
Ejikeme said her organization is now set to begin nationwide implementation of its ‘I Am Alive’ pension verification platform after the pilot scheme that was tested with 50,000 pensioners came out successful.
“The pilot scheme came out successful. And we now are confident to think of rolling out and that confidence is also borne out of the fact that we have done a training for pension desk officers and patient union executives from the northern zone, the one for the South is coming up in a few weeks time,” she told a press conference yesterday.
This landmark achievement has been made possible by the support received from the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget & National Planning, the Committees of the Senate/House of Representatives oversighting pensions, the Budget Office and the commitment and political will of our most pensioner friendly President, His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari who has made payment of pension and retirement benefits a topmost priority of this administration.
She stated that the nine years of PTAD’s existence, “the directorate has been proactively, intentionally and effectively changing the narrative as far as Defined Benefit Pension administration is concerned.”
Dr Ejikeme attributed the successes and achievements of PTAD President Muhammadu Buhari and the minister, Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Dr (Mrs.) Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed.
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