Many Federal Government retirees deprived of their entitlements for many years are still expecting their names to be listed on the payroll for monthly stipends, three months after a new pension administration took over;
Many of the Federal Government retirees under the defined benefits scheme have continued to groan in pain because of haphazard payment or non-payment of their entitlements for many years.
Recently, some of the aggrieved retirees who wrote a petition to the Federal Government complained that the inability to earn their monthly stipends had continued to send many of their members to early grave.
According to the petition, which was signed by the Chairman, Concerned Federal Retirees, Mr. David Adodo, and made available to our correspondent, payment of pensions to several old citizens who served the country meritoriously in their prime had been stopped.
Over the years, the major problems that the Federal Government pensioners had continued to encounter under the Defined Benefits Scheme include non-payment of gratuity and pensions, non-payment of arrears, omission and delisting of retirees’ names from payroll.
Families of deceased retirees have also continued to encounter delay and suffer non-payment of entitlements of their breadwinners.
Adodo said many genuine retirees whose names were deliberately removed from payroll in 2010 up till now have not been reinstated.
According to him, the concerned pensioners had filled complaint forms several times and sent them to government departments in charge of their pensions without positive result.
He also worried that despite the fact that majority of the retirees had travelled to Abuja on several occasions on this subject; their situations have remained the same.
Adodo worried that it was painful that series of verification exercises were conducted in the past to punish pensioners as they did not solve their lingering problems.
Pensioners, he observed, went through a lot of hardship while many of them spent more than two weeks before they could be verified.
Adodo said, “We have advised that after the verification, pensioners should be paid immediately in order to justify the result of the exercise. For your information, previous exercises conducted have not favoured pensioners.”
The concerned pensioners’ chairman said he travelled recently to Abuja and submitted pensioners complaints and petitions to the offices of the Minister of Finance, Speaker of House of Representatives and Head of Civil Service of the Federation.
He is unhappy that the retirees are not getting response from those offices.
After a recent visit to the new Director-General of the PTAD, he said, the new leadership of the pension directorate assured him that the pensioners were going to be paid their entitlements.
“Old men and women are dying and we are not getting any response and the attitude is unacceptable, we need prompt payment and they should be ready to defend us,” he said.
According to him, some of the unpaid retirees said they had been receiving some calls from the PTAD to do verification for them on phone with promises that they would be paid their pensions.
Adodo stressed that early intervention by the Federal Government will save the retirees from their predicaments and prevent them from early death.
Some of the unpaid retirees who spoke to our correspondent also pleaded with the Federal Government to promptly respond to their plight and pay their entitlements.
Mrs. Aishatu Yusuf, 80, retired from the Ministry of Agriculture in 1999. She said she had never been paid a dime since she left active service. This, she said, had subjected her to severe hardship. According to her, she had travelled to the pension offices in charge of her payment in Abuja several times but had yet to get any result.
Mrs. Bisolay Oyawale, was retired from the Ministry of Information in 2006 and had not been paid her pension since then.
“Life has not been easy, I have been living by the grace of God,” she said.
Mr. Fasemo Joseph, 73, is a Federal Government retiree who left service in 2002. He complained of haphazard and short payment of his monthly pensions.
“I had to stop my children from attending school because I could not pay their school fees anymore. I cannot fight; I am only begging the government to pay me my pensions,” he said.
Mr. Idowu Alaka, 57, retired from the service of the Federal Government in 2006.
According to him, he was paid his gratuity in 2007, but had not been placed on monthly payroll since then.
Despite different legislative reforms introduced in many years aimed at correcting the abnormalities in the Federal Government Pension Scheme, the retirees under the defined benefits scheme have continued to encounter hardship.
While those appointed to administer the scheme had allegedly continued to steal funds meant for the payment of the retirees, economic recession sometimes affects the funding of the scheme by the government.
Despite the rate of inflation which also increases the cost of living, many pensioners are either not paid or paid ridiculously low amounts.
With the recent increase in the price of Petrol Motor Spirit to N145 per litre, it is absurd to see that many Federal Government retirees still earn below N1, 000 a month, according to some stakeholders.
Prior to 2002, the Federal Government used to release money to some State Governments quarterly to settle their pension commitments. However, since the payment of federal share of pension which used to be the duty of the state governments was transferred to the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, payment problem has worsened for the retirees.
In 2010, there was another reform in the pension scheme of Federal Government workers when a former Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Oladapo Afolabi, inaugurated the Pension Reform Task Team as a new body in charge of pension payment.
The PRTT which was headed by Abudulrasheed Maina employed a different approach in addressing the lingering challenges.
Despite measures the PRTT introduced, pensioners’ sufferings did not subside. This made the Federal Government to dissolve it and returned the management of the pension scheme back to the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation in 2012.
In 2013, a new body known as the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate was set up. It derived its legality from section 30 sub-section (2) (a) of the Pension Reform Act 2004 (PRA).
Ms. Nellie Mayshack was appointed as the Executive Secretary/ Director-General of the new office.
After more than two years of PTAD’s operations, the problems of the retirees did not end.
In March, Mayshak was placed on suspension by the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun.
A director from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation was immediately appointed as Acting Executive Secretary/Director General.
While there were allegations that the suspension was as a result of scam running into billions of naira, a statement signed by the Director Corporate Services, PTAD, Atiku Saleh, stated that the details on the issues relating to the suspension were yet to be made available.
Unpaid retirees have however continued to look up to PTAD to defend their cause before the Federal Government.
They want the verification exercises done and also want immediate commencement of the payment of their monthly stipends and arrears.
Meanwhile, Head, Corporate Communications, PTAD, Theodora Amechi, stated that the directorate has paid benefits and entitlements to over 500 Next-of-Kin of deceased parastatals pensioners under the universities and Colleges of Education.
This, she added, was after a validation exercise which took place in the six geo-political zones in the country recently.
“During the validation exercise, PTAD updated the data of NoKs previously verified by the National Pension Commission between 2008 and 2012 during the parastatals pensioners’ verification exercise phase one,” she said.
According to her, this payment was in fulfilment of the promise by PTAD management that all NoKs would be paid their entitlements.
She said payments have been made to NoKs of the various agencies confirmed in letters signed by the chief executive officers of these institutions or their immediate delegates.
Amechi said that PTAD was working hard to ensure all qualified NoKs were paid their due entitlements.
Culled from PUNCH.
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