The Pension Transition Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) said on Sunday, it has enlisted no fewer than 4,370 pensioners in four states of the North East in an exercise meant to clean up the pension system and erase ghost pensioners.
A statement by the Public Affairs Department, PTAD, said on Sunday that the directorate has so far weeded out 9,000 ghost pensioners from its database.
The statement quoted the executive secretary of PTAD, Mr Sharon Ikeazor, as saying that the exercise will soon take place in all the remaining geopolitical zones of the federation.
According to the statement, the data collection exercise, led by Ikeazor herself, had recorded a “huge milestone” in the North East, with a total of 4,370 pensioners captured in the four states of the North East.
The states include Taraba, Adamawa, Bauchi and Gombe were captured in the one week verification exercise meant to collate biometrics of the pensioners as well as BVN numbers.
Those whose biometrics were captured so far, according to the statement, represent about 75 per cent of the projected number of pensioners in the four states.
The statement also indicated that verification exercise would soon take place in Borno and Yobe states before it would move to the other zones of the country in the first quarter of 2017.
The statement revealed that earlier in the exercise, about 9,000 pensioners who did not have their BVN details were weeded out of the records of PTAD.
The executive secretary of the agency, Sharon Ikeazor, was quoted as saying: “We are not only determined to clean up the books in line with the zero-tolerance initiative of the president, we are poised to remove the negative perception which the directorate has suffered before this new administration. We will continue to insist that the right things are done in a manner that will enhance the operations of the directorate to meet its core mandate to pensioners.”
According to the statement, the team personally headed by Mr Ikeazor, travelled through the four states within a week to carry out the exercise.
“Those who did not have BVN during the exercise, were given on-the-spot assistance to the banks to obtain their BVN in line with the transparency initiative of the executive secretary, who is determined to weed out ghost pensioners from the books and records of the agency. The directorate also visit the hospitals to capture those who were indisposed.”
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