Resurgence of Unpaid Pension Benefits

Current complaints of poor treatment meted out to pensioners by the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) paints a picture of possible degeneration of the present pension system to the old order of arrears of unpaid pensions, writes Ebere Nwoji

For the average Nigerian Pensioner under the jurisdiction of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), the end is yet to come regarding the sufferings, stress and delay in payment of monthly pension benefits.

The Pensioners under the Defined Pension Benefit Scheme, managed by PTAD have listed their current problems and concluded that the management of the directorate led by Dr Chioma Ejikeme, has not been favorable to them compared to the past regimes.

Ejikeme as the Executive Secretary of PTAD, she took over from Sharon Ikeazor who was appointed minister of State for Environment.

Pensioners from Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Nigerian Postal Services (NPS), and others said they could not see difference between pensioners of old and the present one managed by PTAD.

For these pensioners, there is no difference in the treatment of pensioners under the former Defined Benefit Pension Scheme and the new pension scheme managed by PTAD.

According to them, this is because they are still being subjected to period of hunger before they would receive the paltry benefits paid to them monthly.

Pensioners’ Complaints

When THISDAY asked a cross section of pensioners who have been lamenting about the operations of the present PTAD administration to list out in concrete terms these problems which they alleged that PTAD has been insensitive to, the chairman, Association of Retired Senior Public Officers of Nigeria (ARFESPON), Lagos State Chapter, Mr. Olufemi Odewabi, said before Ejikeme’s regime, Pensioners usually have their monthly benefits paid into their accounts between 27th to 30th of every month.

According to him, since her regime, pensioners get their pay at the middle of the following month. Asked if he did not think the delay may have emanated from the ministry of finance which supposed to release the fund, he replied that he has worked in budget office and that he could tell everybody better including journalists.

According to him, usually after the Federal Allocation meeting where the accrued revenue were shared, five days after, each parastatals will get its money and payment commences. He said this happens before month end.

He alleged that what happen was that when PTAD gets its own money along with other agencies, instead of paying to the pensioners immediately some officers would prefer to pay the money into their own account and delay for some time so that interest would accumulate for their own personal gain before paying to the pensioners.

He said they did this forgetting that some pensioners depend on this paltry pay to buy their medicines and food.

He said if the PTAD boss was sensitive enough, she would have looked into the issue and realised that this delay in monthly benefit payment was not happening before she took over office.

He said this was why the pensioners have alleged that she was aware of everything happening.

Secondly, Odewabi said PTAD owed pensioners three months arrears following increase in wages by President Muhammadu Buhari. He said his own association had sent email to PTAD several times on this but no reply.

He said this was how previous frauds on pension started from delayed monthly benefit payment to arrears of unpaid pension and denial of entitlements.

He further said the online verification exercise, which the agency said it was doing was not in full scheme.

He said till the present time, no body has contacted him for such exercise.

According to him, they are handpicking those they want to call without explaining their criteria of judgment of those who are qualified for the verification and those who are not qualified.

He said aside the three months arrears of minimum wage; PTAD has swept under the carpet the 20 per cent increase promised to them during Jonathan’s regime.

He said other regimes in the agency listened to the pensioners’ plight and addressed one outstanding problem or the other but that the present regime has turned deaf ear to all their complaints.

Again, Odewabi said instead of addressing the problem of disparity in pension payment which the pensioners have been complaining about, PTAD Executive secretary had announced openly on the television that pensioners who retired before 2007 would earn nothing more than a specific amount mentioned which he said he could not recollect but that all he could understand from her statement was that the issue of disparity in pension would continue.

Efforts to get PTAD state its own position failed because nobody in the agency could be reached for reactions.

Effect on Pensioners

Odewabi said the result of all these was that at the present level of inflation in the country, some pensioners earn as little as N1000 monthly whereas their counterparts who retired after them earn as high as N30,000 or more.

He said the painful part of it was that all of these pensioners undergo through the same rigorous process of verification and other demands made by PTAD for payment to be made.

He said the worst thing the agency did was that there was no uniform scale in payment of benefits to retirees who retired on the same grade level and the same year.

He said for instance, concerning disparity in payment, a pensioner took PTAD to industrial court and won the case and today his benefit pay has changed positively.

He said as a result of this, some other pensioners were preparing to file their own case since the agency wanted them to fight their way through the court instead of doing the right thing.

He said pensioners’ worst fear at present is that under PTAD’s present regime, they might return to the same old system of suffering before collecting their entitlements, or be enmeshed into arrears of unpaid pension.

As at present, some pensioners under the control of PTAD said they were yet to receive their January pay.

PTAD Act

PTAD, was established by section 30(2) of Pension Reform Act 2004, amended in 2014, which also instituted the regime of Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) managed by the National Pension Commission( PenCom).

The act, exempted all workers who had less than four years to retire from the time CPS was instituted and placed them under PTAD management. Section 30(2) Of the Act, provides for the establishment of PTAD, to handle the pension benefits of the aforementioned workers and those in the Public Service of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) among others .

Section 3.2 of the act states, “There shall be six (6) PTADs for the Public Service: namely the Civil Service PTAD; the Military PTAD; the Police PTAD;the Customs, Immigration and Prisons PTAD; the Security Agencies PTAD; and the Federal Capital Territory PTAD.

Section 4.1 of the Act, assigned duties to PTAD saying the Departments shall carry out the following functions as specified in Sections 32 & 33 of the Act: Carry out the existing functions of the relevant pension boards or offices in the Public Service of the Federation and FCT, Abuja and shall in particular, make budgetary estimates for existing pensioners and the officers exempted from the scheme established by the PRA 2004 under Section 8; receive budgetary allocations from the government and make payments to pensioners as and when due.

PTAD is also required to ascertain deficits in pension payments, if any, to existing pensioners or the category of officers exempted under Section 8 of the Act, pay gratuity and pension to the existing pensioners and the category of officers exempted under Section 8 of the PRA 2004, as well as carry out such other functions aimed at ensuring the welfare of pensioners as the National Pension Commission ( PenCom) may, from time to time, directs.

In addition to these, PTAD was established to address the numerous pensioners’ complaints that bother on issues such as non-payment of monthly pension, short payment of pension and gratuity, removal of name on pension payment voucher, non-payment of harmonised pension arrears, irregular payment of federal pensions and non receipt of pension after retirement among others.

Empowered by Section 30, Sub Section (2a) of the Amended Pension Reform Act, 2004, PTAD, also takes over the management of three of the offices initially running the old pension scheme. These are the Civil Service Pension Department, the Police Pension Office and the Customs, Immigration and Prisons Pension Office (CIPPO).

The directorate takes care of pensioners in the above-mentioned government’s MDAs who had less than four years to retire before the commencement of the contributory Pension scheme and the above agencies mentioned who were totally exempted from the contributory Pension Scheme.

By the law establishing PTAD and exempting these pensioners from the contributory Pension scheme, the scheme managed by the directorate is to operate side by side with the contributory Pension Scheme until the last pensioner among these exempted pensioner’s dies.

What this means is that the directorate still has long period of existence and enormous responsibility on Nigerian pensioners.

This being the case, the pensioners said they had expected PTAD to coordinate its activities in such a way that would make them see it as a body devoted to their welfare.

Pensioners Expectation

The pensioners, also said they had expected PTAD to design its programme of activities in a way that would prove to Nigerians who still remember the gory state of affairs in the old Defined Benefit Scheme see freshness in its activities.

The pensioners, said contrary to their expectation, their present experience was similar to what their predecessors saw during the regime of the old Defined benefit scheme.

They complained that PTAD, under its present leadership was not imp restive enough .

A member of the Railway Pensioners Association who declined having his name mentioned recalled that the agency few years back woke up one morning and delisted names of 15,128 pensioner from government’s pay role tagging them ghost pensioners.

The pensioner said the delisting affected some members of his association who were genuine pensioners and who had been receiving their monthly benefits for years.

He recalled that those pensioners have to suffer and went to Abuja before their names were reinstated.

Arguing that the pensioners who have served their father land for decades before retirement did not deserve such treatment, the Pensioner said PTAD should revisit the objective of its set up as stated by Pension Reform Act 2004.

ARFESPON is 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,

Causes of the Problem

Odewabi blamed the present situation on ignorance of the present leadership of PTAD on how to discharge its responsibilities.

According to him, PTAD’s current leadership is like a square peg in a round hole arguing that she is not a professional and knows little about pension.

Odewabi said government should understand that the position of sensitive office like PTAD should not be filled by political appointment, adding that it should be based purely on merit and experience.

He said pensioners prefer professional accountants well conversant with fund management to man the office than the present situation whereby it is being manned by a medical doctor just like immediate past executive Secretary was a lawyer who knows little about figures.
He said the way and manner PTAD leadership handles pensioners’ affair shows that she is in -experienced.

According to him, the present leadership of PTAD is destroying the agency due to lack of professionalism and experience.

Aside this, other Nigerians, especially pensioners and stake holders in pension matters expressing their feelings said treatment given to pensioners shows said much has not changed from what it used to be.

At one of the pension forums organised at Muson Centre Onikan Lagos, the former Commonwealth Secretary General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, said that when he heared of issues like delay in payment of pension benefits or arrears of pension or denial of pensioners’ rights, it surprises him because pensioners didn’t deserve such treatment.

He said since after his service, he has been receiving his retirement benefits as and when due and that he has not had any course to struggle for it.

He said his retirement benefits come in foreign currency and has not been delayed or denied for any reason.

He urged government agencies in charge to learn to treat pensioners with respect, adding that they shouldn’t beg for what was their right.
Some members of the public who spoke to THISDAY attributed everything being complained by the pensioners to corruption, which was embedded in the Nigerian system.

They however said everything was in the hands of the pensioners to fight for their right by opening up so that people in charge of their payment would rise to their duties.

Analysts Views

Commenting, pension sector analysts said if pensioners did not stand up to claim their right, this delay in monthly benefit payment would degenerate to arrears of unpaid pension as was the case before the advent of Contributory Pension Scheme when one person in charge of pension will decide to corner the money in his personal account and it will be yielding huge interest for him.

THISDAY recalls that some years back, a sick pensioner who had arrears of pension to collect died while waiting for his turn, his son maintained the queue to collect his father’s pension right but when it was his turn, he told the pay masters that his father passed on the previous day while waiting for his turn. But the paymasters could not believe him until he brought his father’s corpse to show them before he was paid his father’s entitlement.