Sokoto -Mrs Nellie Mayshak, the Director-General, Pension Transition Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), says no fewer than 130,000 pensioners will be captured in the ongoing nationwide verification.
Mayshak disclosed this in Sokoto on Tuesday shortly after monitoring the exercise which commenced on Monday.
According to her, the exercise took off at the capitals of the seven North-West states.
She named the states as Sokoto, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi , Jigawa and Kaduna.
“The exercise commenced simultaneously in each of the capitals of the seven North-West states on Monday and it will end on Nov.14.
“Thereafter, the exercise will hold in the remaining geo-political zones of the country between Nov. 2 and February 2016,” Mayshaka said.
She said the exercise would require capturing of the biometrics and documents of the retired federal and state governments’ workers from 1960 and 2007.
“Those retired workers being verified consist of the retired state government workers as well as retired federal civil servants.”
Mayshak explained that the verification would help to create a permanent, credible and transparent database for pensioners nationwide.
She added:“We want to have a database that the federal government can always fall back on and it will be sustainable.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”70560″]
“Even the next of kins of deceased pensioners will be captured, while the ones that are sick will also be captured.
“We have put in place arrangements to also capture all sick pensioners under a mobile data capture arrangements made by the directorate.”
Spokesmen for the pensioners, Alhaji Mohammed Garba and Mrs Saratu Isma’il lauded the Federal Government’s initiative.
“We are happy that the exercise is being successfully conducted and we hope that it will further ease the sufferings of the pensioners,” Garba said. (NAN)
