About N22.45bn was paid to pensioners by the Federal Government under the Defined Benefit Scheme between January and March this year.
Figures obtained from the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate on Friday showed that the amount was paid to pensioners that were confirmed as genuine retirees after the recent verification.
An analysis of the amount showed that N6.66bn was paid to civil service pensioners; N12.25bn to parastatal pensioners; N1.86bn to the Customs, Immigration and Prisons Pension Office; and N1.68bn for police pensioners.
Statistics from PTAD showed that during the three month period, N2.21bn was paid in January to 111,525 civil service pensioners and 219 retired permanent secretaries and head of service; N2.2bn was paid in February to 111,507 civil service pensioners and 218 retired permanent secretaries while N2.2bn was paid in March to 111, 484 civil service pensioners.
For civil servants under the Treasury Funded Parastatals Pension Department, the sum of N2.12bn was paid to 111,525 pensioners in January; in February and March, they had N2.21bn and N2.2bn, respectively.
Speaking on the development, the Executive Secretary, PTAD, Sharon Ikeazor, said that the Federal Government had yet to clear the outstanding 33 per cent arrears for civil service pensioners (12 months outstanding), parastatal pensioners (18-36 months outstanding) and police (12 months outstanding).
She said the directorate had been doing everything possible to clear the outstanding pensions, adding that the arrears of paramilitary pensioners had been cleared in full.
The PTAD boss said that the agency was implementing a comprehensive data management system.
Ikeazor said under the data management system, over 19,000 pensioners whose accounts did not have the required Bank Verification Number were identified and suspended from the government payroll.
She added that the pensioners that were suspended for lack of the BVN would only be reinstated after providing their BVN and undergoing due verification.
She said a continuous quality assurance process would be applied to identify any unqualified pensioner on the pension database.
Apart from the 19,000 pensioners without the BVN, Ikeazor said that about 22,021 who did not show up during the nationwide verification had been suspended from the payroll.
She said, “PTAD has successfully added 7,969 verified civil service pensioners to the payroll. These are pensioners who were verified in the South-West and North-Central in Q4 2017.
“Before this addition, over 19,500 verified civil service pensioners from the North-West, South-East, North-East and South-South had been reinstated and paid their arrears.
“Also ongoing is the computation of benefits for over 5,000 verified civil service pensioners. This will conclude the payroll of all verified civil service pensioners.
“We have also added over 700 verified parastatal pensioners from the Federal Housing Authority to the payroll to begin to receive monthly pensions.” (Punch)
