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By Madu Obi
THE Pensions Transitional Administration Directorate, PTAD, said yesterday that it paid N754 billion to 226,000 pensioners in the country between January, 2015 and December 31, 2022.
At a stakeholders engagement forum in Awka, the Executive Secretary of PTAD, Dr Chioma Ejikeme said the welfare of Nigerian pensioners remained sacrosanct, adding that measures have been put in place for seamless payment of pension.
She described as irrevocable, the organization's determination to change the narrative as far as pension administration under the Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS) in Nigeria is concerned.According to her, PTAD is also confident that President Bola Tinubu will continue to make pension payment a first-line charge given his well-known and commendable antecedents in pension matters,
Ejikeme said: "We have already started witnessing continued prompt payment of monthly pensions to our esteemed pensioners. We cannot afford to go back to the time when the DBS pensioners were owed months of pension arrears and their needs pushed to the back-burner.
"At the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate, we are aware of the importance of carrying our pensioners and stakeholders along in what we do; and this is why we organize this kind of forum to interact with you, keep you updated on our activities, as well as our future plans, and most importantly, get your feedback.
"It is pertinent to note that PTAD has intentionally and consistently been working on achieving positive and sustainable change in the DBS Pension management for the almost 10 years of its operation.
"You may recall that the Defined Benefit Scheme in the past was fraught with allegations of fraud, corruption and inefficiencies prior to the establishment of the Directorate. However, the processes and controls that have been put in place since the establishment of PTAD, have contributed immensely to the change being witnessed today in the management of the defined benefit pension scheme."
She warned pensioners against patronizing fraudsters, noting that they seem to have kicked off their activities again as there were reports of pensioners being called by people pretending to be PTAD staff and soliciting funds from pensioners to enable their entitlements to be paid.
"No staff of PTAD will call or send any message to you requesting for payment or ask you to call a certain phone number before your arrears or gratuity will be paid. Once you get such messages, you should know that PTAD did not send them and will never do so", she added.
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