PTAD verifies additional 5, 000 pensioners

By Ene Osang
Abuja

Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) has begun the verification of pensioners of Delta Steel Company (DSC) and the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) under its Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS) in three centres across the country.
Speaking to Blueprint yesterday in Abuja the Director, Parastatal Pension Department, Mr. Charles Wali, said over 5, 000 pensioners from the two agencies comprising no fewer than 4, 550 Delta Steel and 785 FHA pensioners were being verified.
Wali said the verification exercise followed the directive by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) that pensioners of the defunct Steel Company and the FHA be brought back to payroll.
“Delta Steel was liquidated and since government sold it off; the asset and liabilities are the pensioners and the FEC has approved that the federal government take over their payment because the agencies do not have enough funds to continue paying the pensioners. FHA was paying their pensioners until July, this year, when they brought complain to FEC that they could no longer pay and the federal government has approved for them to be paid, that is why we are identifying them,” he said.
One of those, who came for verification at its commencement in Abuja, Mr. Onofiok Ekong, who retired as a General Manager of the Steel Company in 1995, said he did not believe the exercise would hold, but was impressed with the arrangements made by PTAD which showed that the Directorate was ready to attend to them.
Another Delta Steel retiree from Nasarawa state, Hamza Tunisia Suleiman, recalled how they were disengaged from the company years back, while expressing gratitude to the federal government and PTAD for being called back to receive his entitlement.
“We have lost many co-workers because of the ugly pension experience in the past, but we are happy that today the story has changed for the better and we are being recognised,” he said.
Hundreds of other excited pensioners who turned up for the four-day exercise in Abuja centre expressed their satisfaction on the exercise, just as they called for it to be sustained.
Executive Secretary of PTAD, Sharon Ikeazor, who monitored the flag-off, disclosed that the process would involve “documents review, bio-data capturing and including them in the comprehensive database towards enrolment for monthly pension payment.”

 

Leave a Reply