In its effort to make the company operation easier, Trustfund Pensions has commenced biometric exercise for pensioners under the contributory pension scheme.
Speaking during a retirees’ forum in Abuja, an officer in the Customer Relationship Department, Maha Longe, said the exercise would ensure accuracy of data in tune with the corporate standard.
“Biometric is very necessary to garner information because there are no two people that have the same trump-print. People can forge signatures but no one can forge biometric and we are adopting biometric approach because of its unique features.
This also reduces paper works because it is computerised,” she said.
Longe said Trustfund was embarking on the exercise to enhance the security of the enrollees under its watch stating: “Since the contributory pension scheme began in 2004 when some people joined, we discovered that some of the pictures we collected at the inception are no longer current, which necessitated the need for upgrade of our records.”
On the customers who lost their fingers as a result of accident, she said such individuals would continue using signature for their transaction, pointing out that: “We have access to it except for those that have challenges with their fingers due to accident.
“For these people, there are provisions for them to continue to use signatures for their transactions.”
She further explained that the exercise is easy as any organisation could invite staff of the fund to their offices for capturing on a date convenient to them.
“The plan is to have biometric centres in all our offices across the country. The process does not take time at all. We also plan to move our gadgets to various offices across the country as soon as we get the dates from organisations to do it,” the officer said.
Speaking on questions raised by some customers on why they cannot be granted loan to start off business, Longe explained that there is no provision for loans in the pension administration system.
“The lump sum that is paid to every retiree upon retirement is like a loan. Our observation is that because this scheme is new, many people did not plan ahead.
“There are fresh retirees that want to build a house with their retirement benefits. There are some that want to pay school fees of their children with retirement benefits.
“That cannot work because retirement benefit meant to provide survival stipends at the end of every month. It is not an income that is meant to meet family expenditure. What is going on now is like a lesson to those that are still working to start planning early.”
Speaking further, she disclosed that the growth of enrollees funds has led to the reduction in complaints amongst retirees, adding, “as the years go by, the amount of money in retirees account have almost double.
“This is a departure from the past where they complained about their money not growing. But now, they have seen that their money is growing. Those who had N3 million some six years ago now have about N5 million.”
Also speaking Mr. Ayinde Areojobe who retired from Ministry of Trade and Investment in 2009, commended Trustfund Pension for the good works, stating: “They are doing fine among all the PFAs, because I can say that since I left in 2009 what I left is still there, and my monthly pension is paid regularly.”
