Police Pension: PTAD partners EFCC, ICPC to get fraudsters
…FG saves N1.2bn from 3000 ghost pensioners
Adetokunbo Fakeye
Nigeria’s Pension Transition Arrangement Directorate, PTAD, in collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practice and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) had began to track down people who defraud pensioners by asking for fees to process their payments.
It has also announced that the government saves about N100 million monthly from the 3,000 ghost pensioners de-listed from the Nigeria’s Police pension list.
Director General of PTAD, Nellie Mayshak revealed the developments on Thursday, in Abuja, during a stakeholder’s sensitization workshop organized for parastatals and universities.
According to her, the 3,000 ghost pensioners gulped over N100 million on monthly basis, which amounted to about N1.2 billion annually for the government’s treasury.
Mayshak explained that only 15,000 police pensioners out of the short listed 18,000 succeeded in the just concluded verification exercise, leaving the margin of about 3,000.
The Director General who noted that the ongoing exercise would be carried-out for pensioners of other para-military agencies, after which it is expected to cover civil servants in government ministries and agencies, said the monthly pensions would henceforth be paid directly into pensioners account from July 2015.
“The massive fraud in pension management will never again be seen in Nigeria, there was massive miscalculations in the system, which accounts for underpayment and in most cases overpayment of pensions. So at the end of the day, we are going to have happy and unhappy pensioners”, she said.
Mayshak however, revealed that the organisation in collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practice and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) had began to track down persons who defraud pensioners by asking for fees to process their payments.