PTAD Boss addresses the Media, speaks on achievements, future plans

Executive Secretary, Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), Mrs. Sharon Ikeazor, recently addressed a press conference in Abuja, to sensitise the public on the Directorate’s activities. Below is the excerpt of her talking points at the said press conference. 

GAINS AND IMPACT OF VERIFICATION EXERCISES

1. Civil Service Pension Department (CSPD)

PTAD has successfully added 7,969 verified Civil Service Pensioners to the payroll. These are pensioners who were verified in the South West and North Central in Q4 2017. 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 ongoing is the computation of benefits for over 5,000 verified Civil Service Pensioners. This will conclude the payrolling of all verified Civil Service Pensioners.

2. Parastatal Pension Department (PaPD)

We have also added over 700 verified Parastatal Pensioners from the Federal Housing Authority and NDA (Civilians) to the payroll to begin to receive monthly pension payments. Recall that PTAD started verification of defunct and privatised agencies in Q4 2017 with the verification of pensioners from Nicon, New Nigeria Newspapers, NDA (Civilians), the Federal Housing Authority and Nigerian-Re.

NEW NIGERIA NEWSPAPER (NNN): In Q1 2018, we concluded the computation benefits of New Nigerian Newspapers (NNN) pensioners – 467 pensioners and 17 Next of Kins (NoK) but have not payrolled owing to some judicial issues that need to be resolved. We are working to ensure this is expeditiously done so that they can start collecting their monthly pension.

DELTA STEEL COMPANY (DSC):We ended 2017 with the verification of DSC pensioners across the country including PTAD headquarters. About 4,182 pensioners were verified. The computation of their benefits is ongoing.

NITEL/MTEL:We started 2018 with the verification of over 22,000 retirees NITEL/Mtel across the country. At the moment, we are also working hard to ensure the speedy computation of their benefits.

3. Following the successful conclusion of the nation-wide civil service pensioners’ verification exercise in December 2017, pensioners who did not show up were given up to the end of March 2018 to come forward to be verified. A total of 22,021who did not show up have now been suspended from the payroll, amounting to a monthly savings of N495, 022,747.57 to government. This would translate to approximately N6B per annum. Pensioners in the Diaspora who have written to update us of their status will however not be affected.
4. Conversely, 2,830 Civil Service Pensioners, verified in the North East between Nov 2016-Jan 2017, who were wrongly removed from the payroll prior to the establishment of PTAD, were put back on the payroll and paid their total arrears of N1,328,935,014.82 by June 2017.
5. 8,564 Civil Service Pensioners verified in the South-South between Jan-Feb 2017 were payrolled and paid arrears of a total of N4, 984,219,446.99 from June -Dec 2017.

MONTHLY PENSION PAYMENTS

Monthly pension payments to all pensioners on PTAD payroll have been regular and up to date.Details:

CSPD

In the First Quarter of 2018, PTAD made pension payment to Civil Service Pensioners as follows:

1. January 2018: N2, 215,830,506.54 pension paymentwas made to111,525 civil service pensioners and 219 Retired Perm Secs and HOS.
2. February 2018: N2, 216,184,723.81pension payment was made to 111,507 Civil Service Pensioners and 218 Retired Perm Secs and HOS.
3. March 2018: N2, 216,703,124.70 pension payment was made to 111, 484 Civil Service Pensioners and 219 Retired Perm Secs and HOS.

PAPD

1. January 2018: N4, 097,429,279.59pension paymentwas made to 98,259 Parastatal pensioners.
2. February 2018: N4, 134,638,576.19 pension payment was made to 98,224 Parastatal Pensioners.
3. March 2018: N4, 020,511,594.28pension payment was made to 98,209 Parastatal Pensioners.

CIPPD

1. January 2018: N623, 145,648.93pension paymentwas made to 12,019 CIPPD pensioners.
2. February 2018: N620, 651,619.58 pension payment was made to 11,972 CIPPD Pensioners.
3. March 2018: N620, 328,452.73 pension payment was made to 11, 966 CIPPD Pensioners.

PPD

1. January 2018: N557, 862,130.70pension paymentwas made to 16,048 Police pensioners.
2. February 2018: N557, 787,752.72 pension payment was made to 16,040 Police Pensioners.
3. March 2018: N558, 036,667.13 pension payment was made to 16,055 Police Pensioners.

OUTSTANDING PENSION ARREARS

PTAD pays pension arrears when funds are made available by the treasury. So far, payment of the outstanding 33% arrears for pensioners under the Paramilitary has been done (full payment – 42 months), Civil Service (12 months outstanding), Parastatal (18- 36 months outstanding. This varies for different agencies) and Police (12 months outstanding)

RECOVERY OF PENSION ASSETS

1. Recall That PTAD inherited the Pension Liabilities of all the Federal Government Parastatals under the DBS without the commensurate Assets from the Insurance Underwriters and Boards of Trustees (BOT) who were previously responsible for pension payment to this group of pensioners.
2. PTAD has so far recovered cash and non-cash assets of over N16Billion from the BOTS and Insurance Underwriters. The cash component of N6.9B is domiciled with the CBN, in a designated Recovery Account, created solely for the remittance of such funds. Properties recovered have been forwarded to the Federal Ministry of Works & Housing forproper assessment and valuation.
3. Outstanding Pension Assets with the Insurance Underwriters and BOTs as at April 2018 is in excess of N11 Billion.
4. PTAD will follow all legitimate process to recover these funds form all Insurance Companies and Underwriters who have not complied with the agreed final demand notice of October 2017.

COMPREHENSIVE DATA MANAGEMENT

1. Over 19,000 Pensioners whose accounts did not have the required BVN number were identified in our data management process and suspended from the payroll. The pensioners will only be reinstated after provision of the BVN and due verification.
2. A continuous quality assurance process is applied to identify any unqualified pensioner on the data base.
3. PTAD is able to properly budget and accurately advise government of its outstanding pension liability each year in line with the requirement of pension administration under the DBS.

MAINTAING A FRAUD FREE ENVIRONMENT

1. PTAD is proud of its fight against corruption and has set up the Anti-Corruption and Transparency Unit (ACTU) within the Directorate working with Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC as well the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to ensure a fraud free environment.
2. Our processes and procedures for complaints management and pension administration in PTAD are fully automated and transparent. We account for all pension funds released to the Agency in our monthly reports to both The National Pension Commission and our Supervisory Ministry, The Federal Ministry of Finance.
3. We have developed and implemented relevant Pension Policies and Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for all our processes and activities for efficiency and improved service delivery.

PTAD’s POSITION ON FIVE (5) SACKED DIRECTORS

The four (4) erstwhile Directors contravened Public Service Rule 020205 (a) which states that to be eligible for appointment into the Federal Public Service, individuals must not be less than 18 years and not more than 50 years of age at the time of appointment. These individuals were appointed into the Federal Public Service when they were above the statutory entry age limit of 50 years. Hence, their appointments were ab initio null and void. To ensure conformity in line with the PSR, the individuals where disengaged.

The Executive Secretary offered to reengage them on contract as they possessed specialized competencies and skills with regards to pension matters but they refused.

There have been calls and petitions to reengage them but PTAD at this time does not require their services.

PTAD states for the record that contrary to the assertions that due process was not followed in the procedure of disengaging them, all regulatory requirements were fulfilled in implementing the recommendations of the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation as approved by the Honorable Minister of Finance.

OUTLOOK FOR 2018 AND BEYOND

We are encouraged by the support we enjoy from our Supervising Ministry, PenCom and the Federal Government of Nigeria and plan to accomplish the following in the coming years:

1. Conclude the computation of pension benefit to all CSPD and PaPD verified pensioners to effectively address all complaints of short payment and non-payment. In the same process we are also able to address issues of overpayment.
2. Continue the verification of Parastatal Pensioners under the various sectors and compute benefits for payment.
3. Continue the recovery of all pension assets with Insurance Brokers and Underwriters.
4. Continue discussions and plans with the NHIS for health insurance and other health care benefit to pensioners under the DBS. Other welfare benefit schemes to be explored include benefit discounts and rebates on essential services and products.
5. Relocation of PTAD H/Q from its current rented premises in Maitama to a permanent Head Office at Area 1 Abuja. This movement will amount to significant savings on annual rent to government and provide a more suitable environment that will provide a customer friendly environment to pensioners.