The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) said it has verified over 990 pensioners at the just concluded verification exercise of pensioners of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) and its mobile subsidiary, MTEL in Gombe state.
The exercise which lasted for four days in Gombe, for pensioners in the North-East geo-political zone, was the second phase of the verification for NITEL/MTEL pensioners.
The PTAD management added that the exercise took place simultaneously in Abuja and Kano for pensioners in north-west and north-central zones respectively.
The directorate said the exercise was conducted to ensure prompt payment of monthly pensions of retirees and disengaged staff of the telecommunication company.
According to statement made available to newsmen after the verification exercise held at the Federal College of Education, Gombe, the PTAD said it has received authority to gather relevant information on the nature and status of outstanding pension liabilities of the pensioners from the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE).
It explained that the verification would go through some processes and auditing at various levels before payment would be made.
The PTAD decried the absence of credible data of pensioners in the country in spite of earlier effort by the defunct Pension Office, stressing the need to verify all pensioners under the Data Base System (DBS) for effective resolution of complaints.
The management added that the directorate was working to clear the crisis bedeviling the pension scheme previously characterized by allegations of misappropriation of funds, maladministration and fraud as well as other complaints by numerous pensioners.
Representatives of NITEL Pensioners Association, Segun Oke and Gombe State Pension Bureau, Hajiya Zainab Idris, commended the PTAD for conducting the exercise which they described as timely.
Some of the pensioners expressed appreciation to the Federal Government for taken steps to clear arrears of their retirements and pension benefits after long years of waiting.
