Group Raises Issues over Sack of PTAD DG

Group Raises Issues over Sack of PTAD DG

The suspension of the Director General of the Pension Transition and Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), Mrs. Nellie Mayshak, has continued to generate controversies largely on account of the intrigues that threw up her suspension and new revelations provided by insiders in the pension administration sector.

The director-general, who is reputed for setting up the agency in 2013, was asked to proceed on an indefinite suspension on the order of the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, under whose ministry the agency is domiciled, citing the need to carry out some investigations into its operations.

However, a Pension Advocacy group, Pensioners Rights and Protection Alliance (PPRA), has faulted the suspension, warning that the same cabal that has always worked against the interest of pensioners is at work again.

The pension advocacy group said the alleged reasons given for the DG’s suspension was nothing but ‘giving a dog a bad name and hang it’.

In a statement issued on Thursday in Abuja, the Executive Secretary of PPRA, Mr. Sule Adams, questioned the haste with which the minister of finance suspended the DG without first carrying out a discreet and forensic investigation into the alleged fraud.

“The suspension of Mayshak came to us as a rude shock not because she is above such disciplinary action, but because we find the process leading to it as gravely flawed and undeserving of a Nigerian who had worked hard since the establishment of PTAD to put smiles on the faces of Nigerian pensioners.

“It is an open secret that Nigerian pensioners have borne the brunt of the pervasive corruption in the Nigeria more than any other group after toiling all through their productive years, PTAD and by extension, Mayshak came to reverse the situation after similar interventionist agencies contributed in worsening the situation in the past,” the group said.

Continuing, PTAD insisted that the allegations are spurious and unfounded based on what they called their knowledge of the workings of PTAD as according to them, all pensioners’ salaries are paid through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to beneficiary’s accounts using the Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS).

The group also explained that such payments are tracked through the banks to ensure that every pensioner receives his entitlement immediately they are paid, stressing that it is a known fact that PTAD prepares and submits monthly payroll of pensioners to the office of the Accountant General of the Federation in addition to issuing payment instruction to the same office which is as adjunct of the federal ministry of finance.

It therefore wondered why the ministry could now turn around abruptly to deny the agency, if there isn’t  much to the suspension order than meets the ordinary eye, even as it restate the need for the president to go deeply into the matter.

Adams stated that PTAD had saved tens of billions of naira for the nation through the elimination of over 4,500 ghost pensioners, and recently, saved another N7billion in five months which otherwise would have disappeared into the pockets of insurance companies and underwriters.