Tag: PTAD

ABDULLAHI: I am Abdullahi from Jos Plateau State. My father was a staff member at the Ministry of Defence, Civilian Unit for 16 years before he died in 1995. I have attended various screenings and verifications. The last one was in Jos in 2017. I have submitted the required documents for the payment of gratuity and pension benefits as a Next of Kin (NoK), but to no avail. In 2020 I was called from PTAD to submit some documents, including bank accounts, which I did.

From your publication of my case, PTAD is asking for my verification number which I scanned and sent since then. I hope Omobola will assist me.

PTAD: NoK should provide deceased name and bank statement.

JOHN:  I have been receiving a low pension. They still pay me the same pension salary as they have been short paying me. I have just gotten the alert. Please help me.

PTAD: The pensioner is on his correct monthly pension.

ADAMU: Dear Omobola, my name is Adamu, a police pensioner from C. R. S. I have not been paid since last October.  Please help me.

PTAD: Adamu is back on the payroll since December 2023. His arrears will be paid.

IRIOGBE: Dear Omobola, information at my disposal is that PTAD is yet to invite NIPOST Union and its Desk Officers to work with the committee to re-compute the issues that arose after the back-end-computation that resulted to the embarrassing deductions from our pension from October 2023 till date. I have in the recent past, written to PTAD that many of us are still shocked and devastated over the deductions as well as not reverting us on what we were earning as at September 2023 earlier promised when the panel was set up on January 19, 2024. It is important to bring in the NIPOST union and other sectoral unions that have vital documents to submit to the panel to enable it to make informed decisions on this issue. We cannot afford to be disappointed again. Thanks for your good job. From, Iriogbe, NIPOST retiree.

MABAWONKU: My name is Mabawonku, a federal and state pensioner. I worked at the Nigeria Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) from September 14, 1982 to July 6, 1993.Thereafter, I joined the Lagos State government on July 15, 1993 and retired on January 28, 2008 as a Director. Despite several demands in writing, calls and physical presence, my gratuity has not been paid. I did physical verification with PTAD in Lagos in 2019.

Read Also: PTAD: Resolving pensioners’ issues

On request, I have sent my verification certificate and bank details from 2008 till date to PTAD. With all the conditions met since 2019, still my gratuity of 11 years and pension arrears of six months (January to July 1993) has not been paid. The Nation through you (Omobola) should please help me. Thank you.

OKUNOLA: Good day, I am Okunola, a retiree of Nitel. Some and I have done our verification since January 2018 and till now, we are yet to get our pension due from PTAD. Do we need to come to the Abuja office for our problem to be solved because we have been to the PTAD Lagos office six times with no positive result? I was paid a five-year pension by the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) in 2007, 2009 and 2010.

THE NATION: The newspaper will intervene by sending your complaint to PTAD. Therefore, IRIOGBE, MABAWONKU, and OKUNOLA should watch out for the pension page on Wednesdays for response from PTAD and subsequently every Wednesday for pension news.

MRS NWOBU:  Hello, I am Mrs. Nwobu, a former Senior Nursing Officer in the Nursing Department. I am a UPTH pensioner. I went to UPTH and was asked to come to Abuja to get a PIN for them to process my papers.

 I have called the phone numbers given to me, but there was no response. My date of appointment is July 11, 1974 and I retired in November 1995. I live in the United States and just returned. I was told I must go to Abuja for initial clearance. Please, when can I come to your office, and who will be working with me, and what time of the day will that be? Thanks for your anticipated response. Also, kindly provide me with an office address.

AYODELE: RE: Underpayment Of Monthly Pensions. I wish to put up a reminder that I am yet to get any acknowledgement nor response regarding my complaints to your organisation about three weeks ago on the above subject matter. This is after promises by your receptionists to deliver my complaints to the appropriate authority for further actions.

 In October last year, I was surprised to notice a huge deduction of N48,861.19 from my monthly pension of N154,015.36, for an excuse tagged overpayment of pension and which was not earlier communicated to me. From my concise and articulate computations of the deductions yanked, I believe that it was wrong to have carried out such deductions. By the way, I started working in 1970 and retired from service on August 1, 2005 from Nigerian Institute for Trypanosomiasis Research, Kaduna (NITR), a parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, as a Chief Technical Officer Laboratory Instruments, on HATISS 13, Step 9.

At the time of retirement, my pension was N92,170.75. However, two years later, August, 2007, to be precise, there was a 15 per cent pension increment that jerked my pension up to N105,996.36. Three years later, which was August, 2010, there was another 33 per cent increment of N34,978.80 that leveraged my pension to N140,975.16. And in April, 2019, there was a consequential pension adjustment of 0.0925 per cent or N13,040.20, which finally brought my pension to N154,015.36.

But surprisingly, from October, 2023, I observed with surprise that, a huge chunk of N48,861.19 monthly deductions were made till date from my pensions, with the excuse that, there were some overpayments made all along, which in actual fact this is not true from the in depth analysis I have proffered.  The pension refund I expect from you as of April 2024 is N342,028.33 which I am believing would be paid this month.

These shortfalls have been causing me a lot of financial setbacks. I am equally aware that a review committee was set up towards the end of last year by the Executive Secretary, PTAD to tidy these grievances which are not limited to me or my parastatal alone. Quite surprisingly, the middle of the first quarter of the year is almost gone and the committee is yet to submit its findings, when a broader and more cumbersome Minimum Wage Committee, set up by the government, is ready with its submissions. Times are pretty hard for even workers not to talk of vulnerable pensioners whose pay are nothing to write home about.

At this juncture, I am imploring you to use your good offices to write this wrong, by reversing the status quo and refunds made back as quickly as possible. Thanks and God bless.

Read Also: PTAD: Resolving pensioners’ issues

CHUWUEKE: Good day, I write on behalf of Mr. Chuwueke’s pension arrears. He retired during the staff ratification of NSITF in April 2005. Since then, he has not received his pension arrears. Please, help me to resolve the issue.

JIMAH: Good day, my name is Imoudu. I retired from the University of Benin, Benin City on September 1, 1996 on salary EUSS G.L. 7, September 9. As at January 2015, my monthly pension was N32,914.65 and rose to N49,586.57 in 2018 due to the minimum wage increase. But, surprisingly, by October 2023, my pension was reduced to N32,728.08 less than that of 2015 or N32,914.65 from N49,586.57 without explanation. I appeal to PTAD to pay me the difference from October 2023 till date. Thank you.

THE NATION: The newspaper will intervene by sending your complaint to PenCom. Therefore, Mrs Nwobu, Jimah,  Chuweke should watch out for the pension page on Wednesdays for their response and subsequently every Wednesday for pension news.

ABDULLAHI: I am Abdullahi from Jos, Plateau State. My father was a staff member with the Ministry of Defence, Civilian Unit for 16 years before he died in 1995. I have attended various screenings and verifications; the last one was in Jos in 2017. I have submitted the required documents for the payment of gratuity and pension benefits as a Next-of-Kin (NoK), but up to no avail. In 2020, I was called from PTAD to submit some documents, including bank account details, which I did. From your publication of my case, PTAD is asking for my verification number, which I scanned and sent since then. I hope Omobola will assist me.

PTAD: NoK should provide the deceased’s name and bank statement.

AKPAN: Good day, my name is Akpan. I am one of the officers of Customs, who retired in 2007. We were under Customs, Immigration and Prison Pension Office (CIPPO) before PTAD took over. Before then, I had CIPPO’s arrears of pension from 2007 to 2009, which was paid to my colleagues who were on equivalent ranks of level 09 step 13. Also, my CONPASS’ arrears of gratuity amounting to N1,582,182.36 was not paid to me, though my colleagues got it. The arrears were prepared along with others and sent to AGF’s office (Deputy Director, Special Duties). Whose duty is it to pay money to our bank accounts. I have sent my complaint and the relevant documents to PTAD through their email since July 2023. Yet, no reply uptil now. Please, I need your help. Thank you.

PTAD: Mr. Akpan has been contacted. He is to send his bank statement for the period for resolution of the complaint.

Read Also: Oronsaye report: Pensioners beg Tinubu to retain PTAD

TIMOTHY: My name is Timothy. I have been on state and federal pension since October 25, 1993. I attended a lot of verification without asking for a computation sheet, which I have made efforts to get from the Ministry of Establishment, Ibadan. At the last mop up, I submitted all the documents, but I was not cleared because of the computation sheet. My monthly federal pension of N2,511.57 has been stopped since 2019 or thereabout. Kindly and for God’s sake return my due because ’I am ALIVE’.

PTAD: We are unable to verify him as he doesn’t have a computation sheet and it is a requirement for SWFS pensioners. He should provide his computation sheet.

ANONYMOUS: Good day, I would like to know if my father is eligible for pension under Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS). He was appointed on July 3, 1989 and was removed on April 27, 1999.

The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) has dedicated an email address to pensioners of former Heritage Bank to enable them get expedited resolution of their account’s change.

Its Executive Secretary, Dr. Chioma Ejikeme, who made this known in a statement, said pensioners under the Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS) with their pension bank account in the defunct bank to use: Heritagebankcomplaints@ptad.gov.ng.

Read Also: Oronsaye report: Pensioners beg Tinubu to retain PTAD

She directed the pensioners to send complaints to the e-mail address and attach the following documents: their new account statement, BVN slip, and PTAD Verification Slip.

She urged them to contact the Pensioner Support Services Department.

The Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) will today defend the existence of PTAD before the House of Representatives Special Ad-hoc Committee on the Restructuring of Federal Government Parastatals, Commission and Agencies at a public hearing at the green chamber.

 They said they would appeal to the Federal Government to spare PTAD from being scrapped, merged or subsumed under any ministry, adding that the development is retrogressive and counter-productive.

Rather, they advise that PTAD should be encouraged to stay and build on its ongoing “I am Alive” innovation and scientific approach towards stabilising and regularising pension payment to the advantage and benefit of the pensioners.

NUP President, Godwin Abumisi represented by the National Vice President, Asen Sambe, submitted that it behoves them to lend their voice to the discourse. He affirmed that as senior citizens who have seen it, the implementation of the long-awaited Orosanye Report would go a long way in sanitising our public/civil service system by minimising wastages as well as addressing the issue of duplication of government agencies and departments with overlapping functions.

He said: “Given the above, while the Nigeria Union of Pensioners is not in any way opposed to the restructuring saga, in as much it does not lead to job losses of workers, we are here to make a case for our members under the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS) who are going to be either positively or negatively affected by the implementation of this report.

“Therefore, we are not only worried but apprehensive of this development as the sledgehammer may or not affect PTAD, the only agency responsible for the welfare and well-being of our members. PTAD as we all know is the legally-recognised body that pays the gratuity, monthly pensions and other retirement benefits of our members.

“Please, permit us to take you down the memory lane. The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) was established via an Act of parliament for addressing pension challenges facing the Federal Civil Service pensioners who then accessed their pensions through the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation (OHCS).

Read Also: PTAD: Resolving pensioners’ issues

“During this era when pension payments were domiciled at the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, federal pensioners were subjected to dehumanisation and frustrations as manifested in the endless verification with little or no tangible results.

“To cap it all and, sadly too, this was the period we had cases of pensioners travelling long distances to Abuja for endless verifications as such exercises were centralised in Abuja. Many pensioners in the process of travelling to Abuja to complv and meet up with the exercise were involved in accidents on their way, with some collapsing/slumping on the not well-organised exercises while waiting for their turn on the long queues to be verified, resulting to untimely death of many pensioners.

“The period also witnessed unprecedented delay in the payment of monthly pensions, removal of thousands of names of genuine pensioners from the Federal pension payroll, fraudulent payment alerts, many cases of under/short payments. That is not all, during this period, there were sharp practices by the power racket around the Pension Department of the OHCSF which had cost the Federal Government billions of naira, and which by extension had brought untold hardship, pains and frustrations upon the pensioners”.

Sambe further stated that it was this corruption that gave birth to the establishment and transfer of pension matters and administration to PTAD in 2013. “Therefore, as partners in progress and close watchers of the activities of the new Directorate for Federal Pensioners, we can proudly beat our chests and say without fear of contradiction that TAD has over the years comparatively done well and recorded commendable successes, and indeed rekindled the hope of the hitherto hopeless pensioners in their seamless efforts to make life better for the vulnerable pensioners.

“Therefore, given the above scenario, it would amount to returning to the “Dark Days” of agony and pains if PTAD is allowed to undergo this surgical operation of being scrapped or merged with any parent ministry for supervision with no defined clear-cut objective or directions.

“As Nigerian pensioners, we crave your indulgence to permit us to state for emphasis that the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) is the umbrella body as well as the voice for all civil and para-military pensioners in Nigeria. In other words, NUP is the only union recognised by the law of the land for Nigeria pensioners. Members of the Union who retired from service before the introduction and implementation of the Contributory Pension Scheme (PS) draw their monthly pension and other entitlements under the old Defined benefits Scheme (DBS) under the full supervision of PTAD.

“As the Committee on the review of the Orosanye report on the restructuring of Federal Government Agencies, Departments and Commissions winds up its assignment, the Union wishes to crave the indulgence of the House of Representatives Special Ad-hoc Committee on Restructuring of Federal Government agencies, parastatals and commissions, on whose instance this public hearing is organised, to spare TAD from the sledgehammer of the restructuring to save the Defined Benefit Scheme pensioners from going back to the horrible nightmare of the old order of oppression, depression and hopelessness.

“On the other hand, and better still, if PTAD cannot skip or escape the scrapping or the merger, we are of the strong opinion that the best place to merge it with for safe landing is the National Pension Commission (Pencom), which we so much believe and trust that it has the manpower, the technical-know how and the capacity to absorb it for effective management. A stitch in time saves nine.”

 He commended the Committee for organising the  hearing.

TIMOTHY: My name is Timothy from Oyo State. I have been on state and federal pension since October 25, 1993.

 I attended many verifications   without asking for a computation sheet which I have made efforts to get from the Ministry of Establishment, Ibadan. At the last mop up, I submitted all the documents, but I was not cleared because of the computation sheet. My monthly federal pension of N2,511.57 has been stopped since 2019 or so. Kindly and for God’s sake return my due because ’I am ALIVE’ .

PTAD: We are unable to verify him as he doesn’t have a computation sheet and it is a requirement for SWFS pensioners; he should provide his computation sheet.

MONDAY: Good day, my name Is Akpan. I am one of the officers retired by Customs in 2007. We were under Customs, Immigration and Prison Pension Office (CIPPO) before PTAD took over.

Before the takeover, I was with CIPPO’s arrears of pension from 2007 to 2009; as was paid to my colleagues of equivalent ranks of level 09 step 13.

Also, my CONPASS’ arrears of gratuity, amounting to N 1,582,182.36, was not paid to me as was paid to my colleagues. The arrears were prepared along with others and sent to the AGF’s office (Deputy Director, Special Duties) whose duty is to pay money to our individual bank accounts. I have sent my complaint and the relevant documents to PTAD through their email since July 2023. Yet, no reply till now. Please, I need your help.Thank you.

PTAD: Monday has been contacted. He is to send his bank statement for the period for resolution of the complaint.

ABDULLAHI: I am Abdullahi from Jos Plateau State. My father was a staff member with the Ministry of Defence, Civilian Unit for 16 years before he died in 1995. I have attended various screenings and verifications and the last one was in Jos in 2017. I have submitted the required documents for the payment of gratuity and pension benefits as a Next-of-Kin (NoK), but up to no avail.

In 2020, I was called from PTAD to submit some documents, including bank account details, which I did. From your publication of my case, PTAD is asking for my verification number which I scanned and sent since then. I hope Omobola will assist me.

PTAD: NoK should provide the deceased’s name and bank statement.

Read Also: How to confirm ‘I Am Alive’, by PTAD

ANONYMOUS:  Good day, I would like to know if my father is eligible for pension under Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS). He was appointed on July 3, 1989 and was removed on April 27, 1999.

PTAD: No name and details provided.

DUROJAYE: Thank you for your reply in The Nation Newspaper on August 16, 2023 on the short payment of my federal pension since 2015. As requested, I have sent my bank statements since 2015 through email to PTAD on July 3, 2023.

PTAD: Work in progress.

KIRIKI: Hello sir, my name is Kiriki. My federal pension has not been paid since February 2022. When my pension number is slotted into the computer system, it shows the number does not exist. I retired from MDA: TESCOM, Akure Ondo State (Education). My date of first appointment is January 1, 1972.

PTAD: Pensioner to wait for reinstatement to payroll before retrying

ADEWALE: Good day, my name is Aladeokin, a Cyber Cafe operator in Ado Ekiti. Many retirees come to my business for ‘I AM Alive’ verification. Many were successful but some were not even after about five attempts to take their photograph before it locked up.

Also, the finger verification is also not working. Kindly help me to know how to go about it. Thank you.

PTAD: We have contacted him.

• Urges pensioners on process

The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) has reiterated the need for pensioners to perform the ”I Am Alive” Confirmation process.

Listing the steps for the “I Am Alive” Confirmation, the Directorate said it involves two key components, facial and fingerprints.

Facial Confirmation

On facial confirmation, the Executive Secretary (ES), Dr. Chioma Ejikeme, stated that pensioners should log on to PTAD website: www.ptad.gov.ng using a smart phone/computer system, click on the “I AM ALIVE” icon at the top of the page and follow the instructions.

The ES said: “Start the “I Am Alive” confirmation process following the two-step validation. Enter your pensioner’s number and bank account number.

“Then, take your photo, which will be validated with the existing picture in the PTAD database. Perform the aliveness check by moving your face to follow the moving object on the screen. When the aliveness check is completed, the confirmation page will display “Successful”. The pensioner will receive an SMS notification of the successful completion of the process.”

Read Also: Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD)

Fingerprint Confirmation

On fingerprint confirmation, she said the pensioner will need to access a computer system with a finger print device for fingerprint capturing.

“Ensure that NET Framework Runtime 4.7.2 and .NET Desktop Runtime 5.0.7 are installed on the Computer. Click here to download the “I Am Alive Setup” Folder. Extract all files and install them on your computer one after the other.

“After a successful installation of the ‘I Am Alive’ Confirmation desktop application, double click on the application icon on the desktop to launch the application. Start the “I Am Alive” confirmation process following the 2 steps validation process: Enter your pensioner’s number and bank account number.

“The next thing is to do the fingerprint validation by placing any of your fingers on the finger print device for capturing. If the finger print is successfully captured, it will display a “Success” message box. When the aliveness check is completed, the pensioner will receive an SMS notification of the successful completion,” she said.