New Telegraph

Retirement: FG cuts pension liability by N89.85bn

  • Monthly wage bill currently N7bn

 

Federal Government improved pension payment to retirees, a total sum of N89.85 billion was paid out under the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS) in 2020.

 

According to the 2020 annual report of the National Pension Commission (Pen- Com), which supervised the payment handled by Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), the commission monitored payment of pensions to public service retirees under the DBS through monthly statutory returns rendered by PTAD.

 

Early in the year, the Executive Secretary of PTAD, Dr. Chioma Ejikeme, disclosed that the directorate had a liability of over N150 billion to pay pensioners who retired from parastatals of government. The monthly wage bill for pensioners currently stands at N7 billion. She, however, said the liability was being cleared as the Federal Government pension arrears.

 

She said: “When it comes to funding for pension, you have to separate the running cost from the pension funds. In terms of pension funds, I must say, that the government has really been quite benevolent in making sure that money is provided to pay pension in arrears. The only place we have a problem is in the parastatal pension department.

 

“The liability became huge as a result of the disengagement because of the time they were disengaged in 2005 and since that time nobody had paid them anything until 2018 when President Muhammadu Buhari instructed that we put them on the payroll and start paying them. But the arrears had accumulated for 13 years.

 

“We have been able to take care of the liabilities of pensioners from other departments of government to the best of our ability based on the budgeting provisions we have been getting.” Recall that PTAD also received the sum of £26.505 million repatriated from the United Kingdom.

 

The pension funds had hitherto been under investment with Crown Agents Investment Management (CAIM) Limited in the United Kingdom. Ejikeme explained that the repatriation was made possible through the approval of President Mohammadu Buhari and series of meetings between PTAD management, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Crown Agents Investment Management Limited, United

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