From Obinna Odogwu, Awka
Pensioners, especially those who retired from federal service, are full of praises for the present leadership of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD).
At a recent programme organised by the directorate in Awka, the Anambra State capital, pensioners took time to narrate how their conditions have been positively changed by the current leadership of the directorate.
The event was a stakeholders’ engagement forum for the South East region organised to brief the pensioners about the programmes and activities of PTAD and to get their feedback. It was also to further push the directorate’s ongoing ‘I Am Alive’ confirmation campaign.
National President of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Mr Ikechukwu Abumisi, told Saturday Sun that the pensioners passed through untold hardship while making efforts to get verified so as to be able to get their entitlements.
Using the periodic verification exercise for pensions as an example, Abumisi narrated that in the past, some of his colleagues who travelled from different parts of the country to Abuja, the nation’s capital, had to sleep under bridges just to be able to make it early to the venue of the exercise.
He explained that the recent ‘I Am Alive’ confirmation solution introduced by PTAD had successfully taken away the pains and agonies which his colleagues had experienced.
“Before 2014, pensioners had to travel at night to go to Abuja to do verification. But that is a thing of the past. We now stay at home and do our verification. We are not muffled anymore. We don’t part with our money to get verified”, he said.
Abumisi commended the Executive Secretary of the directorate, Dr Chioma Ejikeme, for her visionary leadership which he said brought positive changes to PTAD.
“They have done a lot of work for the pensioners. And we thank them and hope that God almighty will bless all of them, particularly the Executive Secretary. She goes out of her way to ensure that our issues are well handled.
“We can’t expect more from her unless the current government still keeps her in the office. If she leaves office, then it will be a lot of problems and difficulties for us. So, we are asking the present government to retain her because she is a round peg in a round hole.
“It will be a disaster to many of the pensioners if she leaves office. So, we are calling on the Federal Government to reappoint her to this position so that she can complete the work she has very ably started,” he said.
On his part, the President of Retired War-Affected Police Officers Association, Mr Oji Ude, a lawyer, commended Ejikeme for her good works, saying that her leadership in PTAD was a blessing to them.
Ude, who narrated that members of the group were dismissed from the police after the Nigeria – Biafra war, lamented that despite President Olusegun Obasanjo’s amnesty for them, they were yet to get their due share of the police pensions.
He, however, expressed joy that the PTAD boss had stepped into their matter, making spirited efforts to persuade the apex government to consider the hardship they were going through and pay them their entitlements so that they would be able to take care of themselves considering their old age.
“Our case is peculiar because at the end of the civil war, because we served in Biafra, we were dismissed from the police force in 1970. And we started petitioning against the injustice.
“Thirty years later, we were retired by presidential amnesty granted by President Obasanjo. And according to the amnesty, the retirement will take effect from May 2000.
“And naturally, if you’re retired, your pension is based on the salary you were earning at the time of retirement. So, naturally, we expected that our pension would be based on the year 2000 salary scale which was the year of our retirement.
“But unfortunately, probably as a punitive measure, our pension was based on what we were earning when we were dismissed 30 years before then.
“So, that made what our people earn a very meagre sum of money. And that is why we are backing the Executive Secretary in her drive to persuade the Federal Government to harmonise pension payments for retirees.
“Harmonisation means at the present rate of the salary payment of wherever you retired from, that should be what your pensions should be calculated on. And if that happens, we are very hopeful. That’s why we are excited they are doing this,” he said.
Ude, who revealed that his colleagues earned between N6,000 and N15,000 as pensions, said, however, that things have improved lately.
“It doesn’t even buy aspirin for your old age. But then, things are improving. That’s why we are urging the Executive Secretary to continue in the drive she has commenced. And she has pursued it to a level hoping that it works through before Buhari leaves office.
“But then, we are in a new regime. And we will be appealing that the present regime, when the project is revived, they should give attention to it. It will benefit all pensioners especially us,” he stated.
Another pensioner, Mrs Uche Orakwute, said Ejikeme’s appointment into PTAD signalled a new dawn in the directorate. She said that she received her pensions regularly unlike before.
“Today’s programme is very interesting. They have exposed me to what I should know. And I like this PTAD. What they did to us is that they have arranged us; they have organised us that we pensioners, we don’t have problems any longer.
“My pension comes monthly, regularly and on time. And I am very happy that the old story that is told about pensioners is no more. We are now in the new regime and I am encouraging them, all the staff of PTAD, I want God to bless them for what they have done for me and all of us pensioners.
“And I hope that it will continue. Let it not be that we are happy today, tomorrow we won’t be happy. We don’t want to go back to the old bad times again.
“We want to reach that Promised Land where at the end of the month, every pensioner will receive their pay because when you work, it is expected that you gain”, Orakwute stated.
Speaking at the event, the Director, Pensioner Support Services at PTAD, Nneka Obiamalu, disclosed that the sum of N42,332,909,500.42 in pension arrears and N7,134,360,136.45 in death benefits had been paid to 161,122 pensioners and 3,832 next of kin of deceased pensioners from 2014 to date. This totals N49,467,269,636.87.
Obiamalu said that serious efforts were still being made to ensure that every pensioner got their entitlements and that the Benefits Computation System had been created to make it easier to calculate pensioners’ benefits with minimum manual interference.
The Executive Secretary, Ejikeme, said that she derived joy in doing her work well and that she was elated that the pensioners were happy with the good works she was doing with her team.
She said that from January 2022 alone to date, the directorate had carried out a series of activities that benefited the pensioners.
“They include complete payment of arrears arising as a result of the consequential adjustment to pensions as a result of the increase in minimum wage of April 2019 to the four operational departments in the directorate.
“Complete liquidation of the 126 months outstanding liabilities due to ex-workers of Nigeria Reinsurance Corporation. Complete payment of the 219 months of inherited liabilities to ex-workers of New Nigeria Newspaper Limited.
“Complete payment of the 100 months of inherited liabilities to ex-workers of NICON Insurance. Complete payment of the 96 months of inherited liabilities to ex-workers of Delta Steel Company (DSC).
“Implemented the 9.7 per cent increment to ex-PHCN workers with attendant arrears paid. Payment of a total of 48 months of the 84 months inherited arrears owed NITEL/MTEL pensioners, leaving a balance of 36 months for complete liquidation.
“With these payments, we are glad to inform you that PTAD has completely liquidated the inherited unfunded liabilities of all the Defunct/Privatized Agencies handed over to PTAD in 2017, with the exception of NITEL/MTEL with a balance of 36 months, which we are fully committed to liquidating”, Ejikeme said.
The PTAD boss said that she had been getting positive feedback from pensioners across the country.
“It’s been humbling. It’s been amazing. The way they praise us everywhere we go, the way they appreciate us, the way they pray for us. Every day I get people sending me prayers and I am like ‘this is what you are supposed to get, it is your entitlement.
“We are not doing you a favour. This is what you worked for and it is what you are supposed to get. It’s been a very humbling experience I must tell you because the pensioners of the defined benefit scheme under PTAD, they are so appreciative of what we are doing. And that makes us happy. It gives us the energy to continue to do what we are doing”, Ejikeme said.