By  Soni Daniel
THE   Pension  Transitional Arrangement Directorate, PTAD, has discovered and removed no fewer than 800 ghost accounts from its register. The ghost names were reportedly smuggled into the  register of the fund by public officials saddled   with the management of senior citizens’ retirement benefits to defraud the Federal Government.

Acting Director-General of PTAD, Mr. Muritala Oluwatoyin, made the disclosure at a media interaction in Abuja yesterday. Oluwatoyin, who was recently appointed in an acting capacity from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, AGF, was sharing PTAD’s difficulties in its bid to clean the mess created by fraudulent civil servants in the past to enrich themselves through the ghost workers syndrome.

Until the establishment of PTAD which is managing the pensions of public servants organizations like the military, police and other category of public servants who were cut off before the commencement of the 2004 Pension Act which full implementation has run now for eleven years. The scheme was under management of the Office of the Head of Service of the Federal Government. “ Before I took over, we had a lot of issues. In fact, I have the personal experience of my uncle who applied for over two years and they were asking him to wait for clarification but when I took over and based on that experience, I found out that the problem is that of records.”

*One of the protester Mr. Felix Adewale Balogun, Chairman Shomolu Local Government Education Authority bin cary out, during A Protest by Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Lagos state, on non payment of Pensioners arrears and gratuities by Lagos state Government, at Lagos House, Alausa, Ikeja. Photo: Bunmi Azeez (File)

“ We have updated the records, we have their files and we have done so many of them. And more are still coming.

“As at last week, we added 178 pensioners with complaints and we paid their arrears.  Our pension liabilities keep reducing every month.

“Presently, we have been able to pay part of the 33 percent arrears being owed pensioners. I have paid all outstanding 33 percent increment arrears for those in the paramilitary services from the savings we are making.

“ Similarly, for civil service pension, I have paid 12 months’ arrears and I am still planning to pay another 12 months very soon.

“For parastatals, we have been able to pay 12 months but we have issue of records with them. Before they were unbundled to us, some of the trust funds have been paying them so now we are asking for information on how much they have been paid. Once that is done, we will move ahead.

“ All the regular and payment of arrears we have been making are from the normal funds we receive.

“ There have been no additional funds released to us. We make the savings from ghost manes we have been able to remove from the payroll. In one particular week;   we closed about 800 different accounts in one day from various banks which we passed to ICPC for investigation.

“We have signed a memorandum of understanding with ICPC on pension fraud and they have promised to assist us. We are hoping that very soon we will unravel those behind the illegal accounts.

“ It is an ongoing process however and there may be more discoveries. We have been using BVN to track multiple accounts. Many of such accounts are hurriedly being closed now because they realise we are on to them.

“ We pay about N16 billion pension monthly. It is a lot of money.It is not fair for anybody to accuse me of holding to offices. “I am a director in the office of Accountant General of the Federation. It was because of the mess created in PTAD that I was seconded there as acting director general. “You can see than I still maintain my office in the Accountant General’s office and whenever a substantive director general is appointed, I will return to my office.

“ But up till now,no   substantive director general has been appointed.  We have not been able to pay arrears of police pension. “However, we have been able to establish their records and over the years we have been paying most of them. We have also capture those who were hitherto not being paid.

“Because most names on police pension payroll are genuine, we have not been able to make much savings from them. Even when I paid 12 months’ arrears across board, I could only manage to pay three months to police pensioners.

“Even then, I had to harvest from the savings I made from others to be able to pay the three months. We explained this to Police Pension Union.

“Right now, we have requested for additional funds and once we get this, or by December if we are able to make more savings from the paramilitary, who we are not owing any arrears, we will be able to divert that to pay police,”  he said.