In preparation for the verification of all treasury funded parastatals across the country, the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) has begun the training of its staff to ensure an efficient and seamless exercise.

The 3-day training which started on Wednesday March 13, 2019, is to prepare and equip staff with requisite know how for the simplified and efficient verification as well as biometric capture process which will eliminate the lag between the completion of verification exercise, computation and enrollment of pensioners.

Principal pensioners as well as Next of Kin from 270 agencies across 6 sectors including Power, Education, Universities, Other Public Sectors (OPS), PHCN and Health are expected to be verified during the PTAD Parastatal Pensioner Verification Exercise (PPPVE) which will commence in the second quarter of 2019. The verification exercise will hold in the six geo-political zones – South West, South East, South South, North Central, North West, and North East.

According to the Executive Secretary, Sharon Ikeazor, when PTAD commenced payment of monthly pension to all Treasury funded parastatals in August 2015, it was done based on payrolls inherited from the various defunct pension boards and offices which was handling payment to pensioners under the Defined Benefit Scheme.

This verification exercise will achieve the following:

• Ensure integrity and validity of inherited payrolls.
• Ensure that only qualified, bio-metrically verified pensioners are on the database and payroll system.
• Substantially reduce complaints from pensioners.
• Create a comprehensive digital database of pensioners and facilitate easy access and retrieval of records for prompt complaints resolution.
• Allow for integration of all pension payroll to ensure “one pensioner equals one pension”.
• Consolidated all valid cases of multiple pension pay-points to one payroll/payment point.
• Ensure monthly pension is accurately calculated and reflects application of relevant pension statutes, policy and salary structures.
• Prevent and/or reduce the incidence of pension payment to deceased pensioners.
• Provide the foundation for the eventual adoption of the “I’m Alive” programme.

The Directorate has assured that program schedule for the exercise will be released soon.