450 ex-Biafran policemen who were pardoned in 2000 by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, would soon get their pension and gratuities 46 years after the civil war ended in January 1970.
The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) which begins pensioners’ verification in the northeast on Monday said it would pay the pension and gratuities after the verification of the ex-policemen.
Mrs. Sharon Ikeazor, the Executive Secretary of PTAD who made this disclosure on Sunday said it had enrolled about 220,000 pensioners and uncovered 9,000 ghost payees nationwide so far.
Pension payment would henceforth be effected by the 15th day of every month, she said.
She added that PTAD had entered into a partnership with ICPC and established an Anti-Corruption Unit (ACTU) to fight fraud in the system.
“Also, what we are doing now is that we don’t make pension payment into any account without BVN. With this policy, we have dropped about 9,000 pensioners because they don’t have BVN.
“Without BVN presupposes that they are ghost because we inherited a lot of data that we cannot really verify.’’
She said PTAD would begin verification of pensioners in the north east from Nov. 28.
Ikeazor said the first phase of the civil service pensioners’ verification would start from the north east region comprising Adamawa, Bauchi, Taraba and Gombe states
“The first place to start the verification must be the north east so that we can key into the Federal Government’s efforts at rebuilding the northeast.
“We can’t forget the north, insurgency or no insurgency; we are going in there to verify the pensioners so that we can put them on the pay roll,’’ she said.
Ikeazor also said there were four of such pension departments to be involved namely the Police Pension, the Civil Service, Custom and Immigration as well as the parastatals.
She said while PTAD would start with the civil service, the other departments would follow soon.
The PTAD executive secretary said efforts would be made to determine the state with the highest number of pensioners through the nominal roll. She said Adamawa, with a little over 2,000 pensioners, “will take like a week to verify”. (Informationng)