The United Nations Independent Expert on the Enjoyment of all Human Rights by Older Persons, Ms. Claudia Mahler, has applauded the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) for having a working system that ensures that pensioners welfare are provided promptly and that they live a life of dignity.
The UN expert, who said this when she visited PTAD headquarters in Abuja on a courtesy call, also hinted on writing a report to showcase PTAD’s good practice of pension management for onward presentation at the forthcoming United Nations General Assembly this September.
“Social security and social protection is one of the major human rights for older persons. A well managed pension scheme is a major need against old age poverty. Workers of today deserve to be cared for in the older age.
“So I really want to congratulate you for already working on the system to see that older persons can live in dignity. You mentioned that you are hoping to have a system that will also provide better healthcare security, it is indeed an idea that your government should think seriously on because health is also one of the major issues in older age.
“Provision of healthcare security has major implications. It is a right and it should be provided as good as possible. While we very much focus on youth which is also good, we should take cognisance that the youth of today are the older persons of tomorrow. So let us think in advance and keep it in our minds to change the structure that we all work for our own future, to have a dignified life and to have a structure where we can rely on.”
Ms. Mahler further said, “On how you provide the services, I hear a lot about digital solutions. It might be that older Nigerian people are more digitally advanced than my parents in Europe. Maybe you give them some support, but I think it is an obstacle for older persons if the information to the services is provided mostly digitally. It might change in the future, but right now, I think we all know it is pretty difficult for them to deal with these digital tools.
“Let me also assure you that I will write the report which will be presented in September to the United Nations, where I will give an assessment, give recommendations and also bring good examples to the audience of the Global Affairs on the good pension management practices of Nigeria.”
Earlier in her welcome remarks, the Executive Secretary, PTAD, Dr Chioma Ejikeme, noted that the Directorate is constantly working hard to ensure that all pensioners under its payroll are treated with dignity. She also said PTAD is doing everything possible and more to provide the best pension administration management in the country.
Reeling out the Directorate’s progressive step toward efficiency in discharging its duties, Mrs Nneka Obiamalu, Director, Pension Support Services Department, PTAD, stated “Over the last nine years, PTAD has worked hard to address these challenges and transform the management of the DBS in several significant ways: management of pensioners files/records; verification of pensioners; computation (calculation) of pension benefits; settlement/payment of pension arrears, 33 per cent arrears, death benefits, etc.; management of the monthly pension payroll; resolution of pensioners’ complaints.
“PTAD services have been designed in conformity with the highest possible standard of service excellence, empathy, and customer satisfaction toward enhancing the dignity of our pensioners.”
She further said, “Prior to PTAD, the Complaints Desk at the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation lacked adequate capacity and was not sufficiently resourced. Complaints management had poor customer service and lacked an efficient tracking process, and so was not able to provide prompt and timely complaint resolution.
But today, “PTAD Complaint Management System allows registering of Pensioners’ complaints and tracking progress to resolution. Pensioners can send in their complaints via walk-in to our contact centres at headquarters or any of our 11 state offices, write a letter to the Executive Secretary, call or send an email to our call centre, file a complaint on our website, post messages on social media handles.
“Most important, PTAD has created a pensioners database with pensioners personal information and carrier documents, the first of its kind. On PTAD database are 241,897 verified and captured pensioners.”
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