The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) has assured pensioners of Federal Government’s commitment to offsetting the balance of 33 per cent pension increase and the continuous payment of monthly pension of senior citizens.
Reacting to an ultimatum by the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) to picket the Directorate and other government agencies responsible for the payment of pension in the country, PTAD said it was collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Finance to ensure that the arrears was paid.
PTAD said it has since cleared the outstanding 33 per cent pension arrears for the Police Pension Department (PPD) was cleared while the only outstanding at the moment was 12 months of arrears for civil service pensioners, while pensioners from the parastatals were owed various months
The statement explained that the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed was committed to ensuring that all pension backlogs are cleared and that she was working with PTAD and relevant government agencies to make sure that the backlog of outstanding pension arrears are cleared as soon as possible.
“The attention of PTAD has been drawn to calls by the NUP and the Federal Universities Pensioners Association (FUPA) over the non-payment of the balance of the 12 and 36 months arrears respectively of the 33 per cent pension increase to pensioners.
“For the record, the backlog of the 33 per cent pension arrears has been owed since 2010 as a fall out of the upward review of the minimum wage to N18, 000.00. Though the increment had been approved, it was not implemented immediately thus creating accumulated arrears of 42 months.
“PTAD commenced payment of the 33 per cent pension payment increase in October 2014 and ensured that all arrears for the year 2014 were paid in December 2014. In 2016, the backlog of the 33 per cent pension arrears for the Customs, Immigration and Prisons Pension Department was fully paid.
“In the same year, 12 months pension arrears was paid to pensioners under Civil Service, Police, Parastatals Pension Departments. In November 2017, the Federal Government through PTAD, further paid 6 months arrears across board to pensioners under Civil Service, Police and Parastatals Pension Departments.
“Please note that the Federal Government has regularly made monthly pension payments to all retirees under the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS) on PTAD payroll.”