Abdulrasheed also told the committee that the revolution introduced in the nation's pensions fund management by former Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mr. Steve Oronsanye, had simplified the administration and disbursement of the pension scheme to beneficiaries.Read the whole thing.
He disclosed that as at December, last year, a total of 49,395 pensioners including those who retired as far back as 1968 who had never been enrolled had now been verified and their biometrics captured, bringing the total number of pensioners on the payroll to 120,733.
"Prior to the introduction of the biometric system, government had been paying 141,792 pensioners up to the tune of about N3.3 billion as regular monthly pension," Abdulrasheed disclosed, saying however that "following the exercise, it was found that 70,657 pensioners were qualified and eligible to draw regular monthly pension out of the 141,790 pensioners who were hitherto on the payroll".
The PRTT boss also disclosed that the government spent N250 million yearly between 2005 and 2011 on pensioners' verification exercise, adding however that "in order to avoid this and cut cost, we devised a system of smart card through which the pensioners could now receive their pay through the ATM".
He further enumerated other achievements of the PRTT to include: "reduction of pension wage bill from N5 billion to N1.6 billion monthly resulting in N3.4 billion savings from June 2010 to December 2011".
Congratulations the brave Nigerians who have demonstrated the courage to go after the corruption that keeps people poor.
