BUSINESS
PTAD Discovers 15,357 Ghost Pensioners
Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) said in Lagos on Thursday that 15,357 ghost pensioners within Federal Government’s parastatal agencies were collecting pensions illegally.
Mr Kabiru Yusuf, Director, Parastatals Pension Department, PTAD made the disclosure when he spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the side-line of a one-day training for newsmen covering pensions.
PTAD was established by the Federal Government in August 2013 in compliance with the provisions of the repealed Pension Reform Act (PRA) of 2004.
Its establishment was necessitated by the need to reform the old Pensions Offices under the Defined Benefit Scheme which was bedevilled by myriad problems.
Yusuf said while reviewing the number of pensioners on its payroll in the last quarter of 2020, it discovered that there were 120,000 of them prior to the call for verification.
He explained that following verification, the directorate discovered that 20,191 of these pensioners could not be found on the PTAD verification data base but were on the payroll.
“After a lot of due diligence, we decided to remove them from the payroll in the belief that if they were genuine pensioners, they would come out to present themselves.
“We established a robust complaint management system and notified the Pensions Commission, our regulator, the National Assembly and agencies where the pensioners claimed to have worked,’’ he said.
He said only 4,834 of the affected pensioners went through the process of the complaint management to present themselves for verification and they were restored on the payroll.
Yusuf said some other cases caused by errors were corrected and the affected persons were also restored to the payroll .
“Up till now, we have close to 16,000 pensioners unaccounted for and unless anyone comes out with valid identification, they are people who have been collecting pensions illegally,’’ he said.
The director said he could not readily name the amount of money the directorate was able to save from ending the illegality, but that in 2016, during the directorate’s initiative to validate BVN of pensioners, it saved up to N7 billion.
Yusuf noted that the initiative was geared towards bringing integrity and validity to the data base in place.
He said that verification was the only recognised basis for PTAD to ascertain that the pensioners it was responsible for were not only qualified but were alive.
The director said the verification would enable the pensioners to link their details to their bank accounts biometrics and thereafter compute their entitlements and pay them their monthly pensions, different from the inherited pension which had lots of errors in it.
He expressed disappointment that PTAD only got an Excel list of pensioners’ names, amounts, bank names and account numbers when it took off in 2014.
“We started making payment on what was called ‘good faith ‘ at that time until when we were able to do verification,’’ he noted.
He told NAN also that PTAD had opened state offices and several social digital platforms manned by competent officers to bring its services closer to pensioners.
Earlier, Dr Chioma Ejike, Executive Secretary, PTAD, said the directorate had worked assiduously over the years to change the narrative of pension administration in Nigeria. (NAN)
The Nigerian Exchange Ltd. (NGX) continued its bullish trend on Wednesday, gaining N183 billion.
Accordingly, the market capitalisation, which opened at N59.532 trillion, gained N184 billion or 0.31 per cent to close at N59.715 trillion.
The All-Share Index also added 0.31 per cent or 303 points, to settle at 98,509.
68, against 98,206. 97 recorded on Tuesday.Consequently, the Year-To-Date (YTD) return increased to 31.
74 per cent.Gains in Aradel Holdings, Zenith Bank, United Bank For Africa(UBA), Oando Plc, Nigerian Breweries among other advanced equities drove the market performance up.
Market breadth closed positive with 34 gainers and 17 losers.
On the gainers’ chart, Africa Prudential, Conoil and RT Briscoe led by 10 per cent each to close at N14.30, N352 and N2.42 per share, respectively.
Golden Guinea Breweries followed by 9.95 per cent to close at N7.18, while NEM Insurance rose by 9.74 per cent to close at N10.70 per share.
On the other hand, Julius Berger led the losers’ chart by 10 per cent to close at N155.25, Secure Electronic Technology Plc trailed by 9.52 per cent to close at 57k per share.
Multiverse lost 7.63 per cent to close at N5.45, Haldane McCall dropped 6.07 per cent to close at N4.95 and Honeywell Flour shed 5.62 per cent to close at N4.70 per share.
Analysis of the market activities showed trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 49.44 per cent.
A total of 320.10 million shares valued at N6.48 billion were exchanged in 7,943 deals, compared with 939.41 million shares valued at N12.81billion traded in 9,098 deals posted in the previous session.
Meanwhile, ETranzact led the activity chart in volume with 70.27 million shares, while Aradel led in value of deals worth N1.22 billion.(NAN)
The central parity rate of the Chinese currency renminbi, or the Yuan, weakened 22 pips to 7.1870 against the dollar on Monday.This is according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.In China’s spot foreign exchange market, the Yuan is allowed to rise or fall by two per cent from the central parity rate each trading day.
The central parity rate of the Yuan against the dollar is based on a weighted average of prices offered by market makers before the opening of the interbank market each business day. (Xinhua/NAN)
Arewa Youths Initiative for Energy Reforms (AYIFER), has urged Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) to do everything possible to bring Kaduna Refinery back into operation.
National Coordinator of the group, Mr Bashir Al’Amin, stated this in a statement issued on Friday in Abuja.
Al’Amin specifically called on the Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Mallam Mele Kyari, to do all within his powers to rejuvenate the refinery and bring it up to global standard.
He said that having delivered the Port Harcourt refinery, coupled with the establishment of Dangote Refinery in Lagos, attention should be shifted to Kaduna refinery for easy spread of petroleum products.
“We are calling on Malam Mele Kyari to expedite action on Kaduna refinery so we can be at par with other regions in the country.
“We equally beg the NNPCL to do professional work in rehabilitating the old refinery and deliver a standard and functional petrochemical refinery and not a blending plant.
“Kyari should resist any temptation that could make him do something that can jeopardise his good image,” he said.
Al’Amin said that since the extinction of groundnut pyramid and textiles in Kano State as well as PAN in Kaduna State and with the Kaduna refinery getting moribund, a lot of youths had lost their jobs.
According to him, all their hopes in the north are tied to the legacy refinery, expressing the hope that God would use Kyari to deliver it well and on time.
He said that the group was solidly behind NNPCL in prayer and would be ready to celebrate the company if its expectations were met. (NAN)
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