FG tasks states on biometric verification for pensioners

By Uche Usim, Abuja

The Federal Government has tasked states and local governments to ensure pensioners under their care are captured under a credible arrangement using biometric systems, to ensure better pension administration.
The Executive Secretary of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), Sharon Ikeazor, who gave the charge in Lagos yesterday while inspecting the ongoing verification of federal pensioners, said it had become imperative the state governments took a cue from what her agency was doing because it has eliminated the perennial fraud occasioned by ghost pensioners.
According to her, the Federal Government, with the ongoing nationwide verification exercise, now has acurate number of its pensioners.
Ikeazor said without a credible biometric capturing of pensioners, the existing database in states and local governments will naturally be filled with fraudulent and fake beneficiaries.
“It’s good states conduct a credible verification exercise that would create a new database for the authentic pensioners in line with PTAD’s procedures,” adding, it will reduce their liabilities. The PTAD boss noted that the directorate inherited a payroll, which was filled with fictitious names, pointing out that the ongoing exercise has cleaned up the system.
She said: “We inherited a payroll that was not tidy. But we are cleaning up the system. In the course of doing this our verification, we have seen people who are in grade level two and are earning over N190,000 in a month! How much was their salary in a month when they were in service? So these are some of the frauds and we are cleaning it gradually.
“States are responsible for states’ pensions. They collected bail out funds and Paris refund running into billions; what have they done with it? Yet, every month, states come to Federal Government to collect allocations; state governments are responsible for local government and states pensions while the Federal Government is responsible for only central and federal pensioners. Therefore, you can’t expect the federal to bear the burdens of local governments pensions,” she said.