The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) has disclosed that total pension liabilities of the federal government to pensioners of 265 parastatals under the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS) stood at over N90 billion.
PTAD Director, Parastatals Pension Department, Alhaji Yusuf Umar, made this known in Abuja at a workshop for journalists, under the aegis of Pension Correspondents Association of Nigeria (PENCAN).
Giving a breakdown of the liabilities, he said pensioners of defunct Nigeria Telecommunications Limited/MTEL with over 11,000 pensioners had the largest outstanding of N73 billion while Delta Steel Company had liability of N7.9 billion, Nicon Insurance with N4.9 billion, Nigeria Reinsurance with 24 months arrears worth N1.1 billion and New Nigeria Newspaper with pension liability of N2.9 billion among others.
Others are the Nigeria National Shipping Line (NNSL) with 953 pensioners owed N1.2 billion, Aluminium Smelter Company Limited ( ALSCON) with 2,000 pensioners had cumulative pension liability of N467 million, Nigeria Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO) N467 million, defunct Assurance Bank with 935 pensioners is being owed with N570 million while Federal Housing Authority (FHA) had N389 million liability.
Umar said the N90 billion would cover 92,000 pensioners of federal agencies.
He said in spite the huge indebtedness, a lot of progress had been recorded in whittling down the liabilities and that the Biometric Verification Number (BVN) had been a game-changer in weeding out ghost pensioners.
The director pointed out that the directorate had removed pensioners operating microfinance banks and requested all pensioners to open accounts with conventional Deposit Money Banks and that over N20 billion had been saved for the federal government through the removal of ineligible pensioners from the payroll.
