BEVERLY HILLS, November 04, (THEWILL) – The Director General of Nigeria’s Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (NOTAD), Mrs. Nellie Mayshak, said on Tuesday that pensioners should be treated with dignity.
She maintained that the long years pensioners rendered to the nation should be reciprocated with the timely payment of their entitlements, stressing that pensions should be seen as a right and not a privilege.
Mayshak, who spoke in Gombe at a sensitisation workshop organised for pensioners in the North-East zone of the country, said pensioners should not be made to suffer before getting their entitlements.
She explained that the Federal Government had thought it wise to establish the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate last year to manage pension funds under the defined benefit scheme in order to settle pensioners in time.
“PTAD and all pension matters are part of President Jonathan’s transformation agenda. We are all aware of the challenges under the Pay as you go system, where pensioners are not paid on time, some are not enrolled, those who are enrolled were short-changed, etc; all sort of problems….. Government then decided to create a separate institution to take care of pension matters under the defined benefit system,” Mayshak said.
The Director General said in line with its mandate, the Directorate had since reduced the stress of pensioners by interfacing with them via telephone and the internet.
According to her, periodic verification of pensioners are now being done at various zones of the country, stressing that the state offices of the Directorate would be strengthened to provide support services.
“The plan that we have is to use information technology to resolve complains. We want to discourage people from using their little earnings to travel all the way to Abuja, only to lodge complaints.
“ So one other thing we intend to do is to have a call centre that will function 24 hours each day. A pensioner only need to just pick his phone and dial any of the numbers we would give, state his complain and somebody would attend to him instantly. The service will be in Yoruba, English, Igbo and Hausa languages,” she explained.
She however commended the Federal Government for making life easy for the pensioners even as some pensioners present at the workshop, praised the initiative.
