The Federal Government has concluded plans to clear the mess of corruption in the Police pension system and pay all outstanding arrears of gratuity, pension and entitlements including the 33 percent increment of former officers and men of the force.
The first step to this arrangement will commence between December 8 and 18, 2014 when the Pension Transition Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), headed by Nellie Mayshak, will conduct what has been described as the last biometric verification of policemen who retired on or before June 30, 2007.
Family members and next of kin of deceased policemen whose final entitlements have not been settled were also invited to the venues of first phase of the exercise which will take place in the six police zonal formations in the northern parts of the country.
The zones falling into the first phase are 1, 3, 4, 7, 10 and 12 with verification venues at Kano, Kaduna, Gombe, Makurdi, Jos and Bauchi.
The arrears will be paid along with December pension but that inadequate logistics will push the verification for ex-policemen based in the south to early next year when their own arrears will also be paid immediately after.
Pension offices for the civil service, police, customs, immigration and prisons department outside the contributory pension scheme were merged in November 2013 to form PTAD with Mayshak as Director General.
The Pension Reform Act 2014 has now also merged all other treasury funded pension board of trustees like that of Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST), Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) and former National Electric Power Authority (NEPA).
An official told PRNigeria that the biometric verification exercise will be a one off event as a comprehensive electronic data base was being compiled to remove an instance whereby “old retired officers most of whom did not actually have a good life during service” will be repeatedly subjected to the indignity of queuing up every time.
“Nigerian policemen have suffered for so long that their children are the most disadvantaged among public officials in the country and we must find a way to remove this trend”, Mayshak was quoted as saying when discussing this new arrangement.
There are about 24,000 police pensioners currently receiving pensions across the country through the Government Integrated Financial Management System (GFMIS).
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