James Emejo in Abuja
The Executive Secretary/Chief Executive, Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), Dr. Chioma Ejikeme, has mentioned the excellent 56 months of inherited pension liabilities for NICON Insurance and the steadiness of 49 months owed to ex-workers of Delta Steel Company which amounted to about N7.05 billion had been utterly liquidated.
PTAD had inherited pension liabilities for 100 months within the case of NICON Insurance and 96 months Delta Steel – all of which had now been cleared, Ejikeme mentioned.
Speaking at a media briefing in Abuja over the weekend, the PTAD boss defined the landmark achievement was made doable by the help obtained from the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, the Committees of the Senate/House of Representatives oversighting pensions, the Budget Office and the dedication and political will of President Muhammadu Buhari who had made cost of pension and retirement advantages a topmost precedence of his administration.
According to her, the inherited unfunded liabilities for these defunct companies at inception totaled over N95 billion, including that they presently have a complete month-to-month pension invoice of N2.29 billion in addition to an annual invoice of N62.07 billion which represented 44 per cent of whole month-to-month/annual pension invoice of the parastatal pension division.
She mentioned, “As at today, we have settled a total of over N39 billion of the inherited N95 billion with N3.4 billion of this amount making up one-off payments. These payments are ongoing.”
She emphasised that PTAD was working tirelessly to be certain that pensioners from the defunct and privatised companies are paid their retirement and severance advantages as quickly as doable.
“I am glad that these efforts are now yielding results, and I must commend our pensioners for their patience and support all these years,” she mentioned.
She identified that as well as to off-setting the liabilities due to NICON Insurance and Delta Steel, the directorate had efficiently ensured common cost of month-to-month pensions to pensioners with out fail, made cost of over N8.5 billion as collected arrears of pensions and gratuities to pensioners of the Civil Service Pension Department and the Next-of-Kin of deceased pensioners by means of the Expanded Computation Project, including that cost remains to be ongoing.
Among different issues, she mentioned PTAD additionally acquired approval to onboard ex-workers of Assurance Bank and Nigeria National Shipping Line on month-to-month payroll, and accomplished the cost of 126 months of inherited liabilities due to ex-workers of the Nigeria Reinsurance Corporation in addition to accomplished the cost of the 219 months of inherited liabilities to ex-workers of New Nigeria Newspaper Limited.
She mentioned, “With the liquidation of these inherited liabilities, the burden keeps getting lighter, and we will continue to work with all the relevant agencies of government to ensure that all accrued pension arrears are fully liquidated, especially the 63 months of inherited pension liability owed to the ex-workers of NITEL/MTEL and their Next-of-Kin which we will continue with soon.”
