PTAD DEPLOYS TECHNOLOGY TO END FIELD VERIFICATION OF PENSIONERS
REPORTER: CHRISTIAN NWANGENE
The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) says it will continue to deploy technology in the verification of its pensioners to check all forms of stress in the pension system and to deliver optimal services to the senior citizens.
The Executive Secretary of PTAD, Dr. Chioma Ejikeme, stated this in Enugu, during an interactive engagement forum for pensioners from the South East Zone under the Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS) and the launch of “I AM ALIVE” Confirmation Solution platform.
Before now, pensioners who had laboured for the growth of the country were subjected to all manner of degrading treatments in the name of verification and capturing.
Some even die in the process while some others have been turned into beggars and dependent on their families.
With the introduction of “I Am Alive” confirmation platform, by PTAD, verification is said to have been made convenient for the pensioners.
The online regime, which takes pensioners through a three-step confirmation process that ends with a text message response, is to confirm that pensioners on PTAD monthly pension payroll are alive and continued to receive their pension without much hassles.
The Executive Secretary said the era of bringing out aged pensioners for field verification would be over as the online application platform was designed to enable PTAD pensioners to easily confirm their aliveness from the comfort of their homes or neighbourhood using either smartphones or a computer system.
According to Dr. Ejikeme, with the successful implementation of the pilot phase, the Directorate would deploy the application on a full scale on a continuous basis for all verified pensioners on the payroll.
“This solution takes the Pensioner through a three-step confirmation process that ends with a text message response.
“The Directorate has decided to deploy the application in phases, starting with fifty
thousand (50,000) Pensioners cutting across the four operational departments and the six geo-political zones, selected to participate in this pilot phase,” the PTAD boss explained.
The Executive Secretary announced that the Federal Government had constituted a Ministerial Committee to see to the possibility of placing the pensioners in a universal health insurance coverage scheme.
“We will continue to prioritise the welfare of our Pensioners and we call on all the
Pension Unions under the Defined Benefit Scheme, and other stakeholders for their
support in achieving this feat,” she said.
She noted that other steps so far taken by the Directorate to ensure the welfare of its pensioners was sustained included Mop-up verification across all geo-political zones conducted for pensioners that missed the field verification previously due to one reason or another.
Some of the pensioners, including the President-General of Federal Parastatals and Private Sector Pensioners Association of Nigeria, who spoke with Radio Nigeria, said that President Muhammadu Buhari had changed the system of pension administration in Nigeria with the introduction of the online application.
Another respondent, the Chairman, Nigeria Union of Pensioners, NUP Enugu State, said Buhari’s administration through PTAD had changed the pension system administration, emphasizing that pensioners never had it this good.
The pensioners urged PTAD to look into issue of some pensioners whose names were removed in the payroll but had been verified.
They also called for creation of a forum where the Chairman or Secretary of pension unions could interact with PTAD officials on issues bordering on my their individual members among others.
