By Chioma Onuegbu Uyo

CHAIRMAN Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service and a former governor of Kano State, Senator Ibrahim Shekarau has said agencies handling pension matters in the country are doing well in recent years.

Shekarau made the assertion in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State capital, while fielding questions from newsmen after a closed-door meeting of National Assembly Committees on Pensions, Committees on Budget and Appropriation with the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD).

He stressed that the 9th Senate was satisfied with measures being put in place by PTAD to address the plight of pensioners particularly the verification exercise and poor documentation that remains major problem suffered by pensioners.

He noted that his committee initiated the stakeholders meeting to enable them rub minds together on how to adequately address such problems in pension.

His words, “So when you say pensioners in Nigeria have not been faring well, I think the major problem that pensioners have been having is poor documentation. And we (Legislators) are calling on government agencies to improve on the documentation of their staff.

“And they should be able to tell them (staff) what to do few months before their retirement. PTAD has initiated so many ways to overcome these challenges. I think PTAD is trying its best now to meet the challenge of the growing number of pensioners.

“The nation is growing, also the public service is growing. So we (Senate) are satisfied with the measures they (PTAD) are putting in place. I think on the whole, the agencies handling pension matters are doing very well.

“Of course there had been long outstanding issues in pension, and it is now that government is trying to address these issues. I think we are gradually making progress”

On her part, the Executive Secretary of PTAD, Dr Chioma Ejikeme noted hat they were doing everything within its powers to make sure that all pensioners were well documented, verified, and receives their pensions regularly.

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“But most importantly we are about to come up with a verification solution called “I am alive solution’. I am alive solution will enable Pensioners get themselves verified in the comfort of their homes, or with anybody who has a smart phone around them.

” So when they will verify themselves and it will hit our data base in our office, that way they don’t have to come to Abuja, or go to any field for verification, so that is what we have in the pipeline now, and the pilot scheme will kick off in the next one or two months”, Ejikeme noted.