Ebere Nwoji
The Association of Retired Senior Public Officers of Nigeria (ARFESPON) has expressed its dissatisfaction with the recent delisting of about 15,128 pensioners including some of its members from federal government’s pay roll late last year.
ARFESPON, made up of retired management level officers from salary grade level 14 to permanent secretaries, comptrollers-generals of Customs, Immigration and Prisons and career ambassadors, lamented that because of the delisting, some of its members have not received their pension benefits since November last year.
It said recent explanation by the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) that the above number of pensioners had their names delisted from government’s pay roll as a result of problem associated with their Bank Verification Number (BVN) was unacceptable, arguing that the pensioners concerned had before now been receiving their monthly benefits without any problem since the introduction of the BVN.
The association, alleged that government, lacked money to pay their pension benefits since November last year and instead of admitting that, it put forward the issue of BVN.
Questioning if PTAD has become bank that works with depositors’ BVN, it said if the BVN is the problem, it would have come from pensioners’ banks not from PTAD.
President, Lagos Chapter of ARFESPON, Olufemi Odewabi, addressing journalists on the plight of the association’s members in the face of the problem at the association’s secretariat in Lagos, called for immediate restoration of the delisted pensioners’ names in the pay roll of government just as he has on behalf of the association called for change of leadership of PTAD for professionalism reason.
According to him, the present leadership of PTAD is destroying the agency due to lack of professionalism and experience.
He said the head of PTAD leadership team has neither been a civil servant nor a professional accountant, therefore does not have indept knowledge of pension matters.
He said because of her lack of experience, the way and manner she handles pension issues is capable of destroying all that government has already put in place to address pension problems in the country.
ARFESPON, also urged government to pay up the outstanding 18 months arrears of the 20 percent increase promised to pensioners in 2010 and to consider its members’ interest in the proposed increase in workers’ salary in the face of the recession in the economy.
Odewabi, quoted section 173, sub section 4 of the Nigerian constitution which states “pension shall be reviewed every five years or together with any federal civil service salary reviews whichever is earlier”, and urged government to take cognisance of that in dealing with pensioners.
He recalled that federal government, effected increase in pension benefits last in 2010, adding that even with that, it is still owing its members 18 months of the 20.4 percent of the 2010 increase.
He said though government understands the play cards language easier, ARFESPON members lack the strength to carry play cards but can throw stones.
He called for immediate restoration of the delisted pensioners’ names and payment of their arrears.
PTAD, had in a circular titled “suspension of 15,128 pensioners without Bank Verification Numbers, circulated to pensioners under its purview stated: “as part of PTAD’S commitment to getting authenticated data base of pensioners / streamlining its
pay roll ,the directorate has suspended 15,128 pensioners from its pay roll due to lack of bank verification numbers”.
“This action was taken following verification exercise by PTAD in collaboration with the independent corrupt practices commission and commercial banks to obtain the current status of bank account being submitted by pensioners to receive their pension payment as bank verification number is mandatory for the operation of bank account, pension payment to these account would remain suspended until the affected pensioners update the status of their bank account and submit to PTAD along with the listed documents.”
