Buhari Approves Request to Increase Pensioners’ Pay

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the increment in the pensioners’ pay from next month, the Executive Secretary of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), Ms Chioma Ejikeme, confirmed during a press briefing on Friday.

She explained the approval for the consequential adjustment to pension benefits was given by the presidency in line with the implementation of the new minimum wage.

Business Post recalls that on April 18, 2019, Mr Buhari signed the new national minimum wage into law and this increased the lowest pay for workers in the country from N18,000 to N30,000.

The development caused pensioners to ask for an increment in their pay and today, Ms Ejikeme confirmed that this prayer has been answered.

“With this approval, PTAD is now empowered to start the upward adjustment of all pensioners’ benefits according to the approved template.

“The consequential adjustment of the new pension payment will start from the May 2021 payroll.

“The arrears will take effect from April 2019. PTAD will also commence payment of the arrears from May 2021,” she informed newsmen.

However, the PTAD scribe stressed that the agency “will not request for any gratification from anybody before the money will be paid into their account.”

“They should not give their account details to anybody. They should report any scammer or anyone requesting for gratification before their benefits would be paid to PTAD.

“I repeat, do not give money to anybody. We have concluded arrangements to send SMS to all pensioners informing them of the payment and to caution them on the activities of pension scammers,” she further emphasised.

Ms Ejikeme assured that PTAD “will continue to strive to improve the quality of their lives,” appealing to “pension unions to continue to partner and cooperate with the directorate in our bid to provide better services to our senior citizens,” adding that, “The labour of our heroes past shall not be in vain.”

She stated that, “As a responsible agency of government saddled with the mandate of overseeing the payment of pension benefits to pensioners under the Defined Benefit Scheme and taking care of their welfare, we are encouraged to do more for our pensioners.”