Years after govt reforms, no respite for federal retirees

Despite reforms to tackle the protracted challenges of retirees in the old pension system called the Defined Benefits Scheme, many of the federal pensioners have yet to get respite, NIKE POPOOLA reports

The Defined Benefits Scheme, regulated by the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate, takes care of Federal Government workers that retired not later than 2007. Workers who retired thereafter are under the new scheme called the Contributory Pension Scheme.

The DBS is meant to operate concurrently with the CPS in the country, and stop when the last retiree under it dies.

The payment challenges which prevailed in the DBS, in which the Federal Government fully funded the scheme, led to the establishment of the CPS under the Pension Reform Act in 2004.

Unfortunately, problems of non-payment and underpayment have continued to linger in the system after several years of reforms in the sector.

Complaint

Mr Amadi Charles, 63, retired from the Federal Ministry of Information in 1996.

Speaking with The Punch, he said, “Since I left the service, I have not received my gratuity up till now.

“When I was in service, I was banking with Societe General Bank , but the bank and some other banks like Savanah folded up.

“When I went to complain, they said I should go and bring a bank statement with Societe General Bank; a bank that has folded up.”

He added after Heritage Bank bought Societe General Bank, he wrote officially to the bank, but it claimed his bank statement with Societe General Bank was inaccessible.

Charles said he wrote a complaint letter to the Office of the Head of Service in Abuja, where his file was searched for but was not found.

He said, “Since I cannot get a bank statement, my official file should be traced. I wrote to the Head of Civil Service. When I went there, they said they could not get it. I was advised to write to the Federal Ministry of Information, which I did. Up till now, they have still not found it.

“When I went to PTAD, they said I should forfeit it. I said forfeit my sweat? Things have not been so pleasant for me. I worked for this money; I need this money. Let them know they owe me.”

Payment challenges

Some of the problems confronting the federal retirees include non-payment of gratuity and pension, and omission and delisting of retirees from the payroll. Many on payroll complain that they are paid ridiculously low stipends.

Grace Bolanle Ajayi, 82, was employed on November 16, 1965 in the Ministry of Works.

She claimed she had been participating in the verification exercise.

Speaking on her payment problem, she said, “I retired in 1976 and I was getting my pensions for the past 40 years. I do “I am alive” verification. They have stopped my payment since 2017, after collecting pension for more than 40 years.

“Later they said I was no longer entitled to pension after I had been collecting my pension for over 40 years. I am hungry. Please, they should not let me die of hunger.”

Omkhopha Kate, 76, retired from the Ministry of Defence. She complained of short-payment of monthly pensions for two years and short-payment of gratuity.

Oyetunde James, 62, who retired from the Federal Civil Service in1998 said, “I have not been paid pension and gratuity. They asked me to go to the bank. The bank gave me documents, which I submitted, but up till now, no payment.”

Tajudeen Shittu, 88, retired from the Federal Ministry of Health. Complaining of short-payment of monthly pensions, he said, “They should be paying me N37,491 at level five but they are paying me 16,845.”

Olaoye Idowu, born in 1947, retired from the Ministry of Defence. He said he did verification exercises.

He said, “I retired in 2005. I was not paid gratuity up till now. They started paying me pensions in 2009, but I was not paid any arrears since 2005. They pay me N24,000 monthly.”

PTAD

After several pension reforms to address challenges under the DBS, in 2013, PTAD was set up. It derived its legality from Section 30 sub-section (2) (a) of the Pension Reform Act, 2004. The PRA 2004 had stipulated that all pension affairs should be consolidated under the National Pension Commission.

The Federal Government transferred the management of the DBS pension from the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation to PTAD and released N500m to the directorate to set up its operations.

PTAD, responsible for the pension administration of the DBS, was established to address the numerous pensioners’ complaints that bothered 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.

It took over the management of three of the offices which were running the old pension scheme. They were the Civil Service Pension Department, the Police Pension Office and the Customs, Immigration and Prisons Pension Office.

Over the years, the pension data had been distorted to make it impossible to have accurate information on retirees in the country. To address this challenge, PTAD conducted several verification exercises, which led to the enrolment of several retirees into the payroll, while many others that could not be verified were delisted.

PTAD later introduced its ‘I am alive’ initiative.

The Executive Secretary, PTAD, Dr Chioma Ejikeme, said, “PTAD launched the ‘I am alive’ confirmation Solution in October 2021 for pensioners. At the launch, we explained the purpose and focus of the ‘I am alive’ confirmation solution.

“We premised our justification on the need for PTAD to continuously update its pensioner database as a means of ascertaining verified pensioners that are alive and should continue to receive their monthly pension.”

She added that “The ‘I am alive’ confirmation solution is the crucial next step that we have to make in our journey to ensuring that all our esteemed pensioners and senior citizens who have served this country, can enjoy their hard-earned pensions without the hardships of the past.

“The tedious, challenging and expensive field verification exercises of the past must end. Pensioners must be able to confirm their “aliveness” from the comfort of their homes, or at the very least, within close proximity to their residences. They should also be able to resolve their complaints without unnecessary stress. We want them to be able to contact PTAD with ease, and to be treated with respect and dignity. This project and all others we have implemented in the past have been designed towards this end goal.”

PTAD said it inherited pension liabilities totalling N129.48bn in a presentation titled ‘Parastatals Pension Department’, which was delivered in Lagos.

In the presentation, PTAD said it inherited an estimated amount of N32.77bn, N28.96bn and N67.75bn owed pensioners of the Treasury Funded Parastatal, Ex-PHCN and defunct agencies.

It, however, said it had cleared almost all the pension liabilities and was ensuring that all outstanding arrears were cleared.

While ensuring that monthly pensions of the retirees were paid, it also said it had taken measures to bring integrity and validity to the pension system.

Speaking on those yet to get gratuity, Ejikeme said quite a lot of those who should be on payroll were already on PTAD’s payment list.

According to her, only a few may be experiencing challenges and PTAD was addressing challenges.

She said, “Some claimed they have not been paid gratuity. Some claimed that the accounts they were using, the banks where the accounts were domiciled have closed. We don’t have any evidence. To now track whether ministries or agencies where they worked gave them gratuity is a little bit of a problem. We were trying to get back to their agencies to see if we could get some of the information.

“So, most of the people with such complaints have a gap in their information. It has nothing to do with information that PTAD has collected. It has to do with previous information before the set up of PTAD, which they could not prove.”

Lingering concerns

The Vice Chairman, Federal Concerned Pensioners, Akinyele Oludimu, lamented that federal pensioners were still grappling with a lot of challenges.

Onidimu said, “The challenges we are having is that of late payment of our monthly pension. It comes so late and when it comes, it is like not everybody is getting the money at the same time.

“So, the issue of making payment is what we have been asking and dragging the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate to work on.”

He worried that many retirees were still not being paid gratuity and pensions, which PTAD needed to address so that the retirees could live comfortably with what the government was paying them.

“We have been submitting many complaints to PTAD but we still have many pensioners that we have not been able to get on payroll,” he said.