Pensioners: Kaduna govt screens beneficiaries without accounts

The Executive Secretary of Kaduna State Pension Bureau, Prof. Salamatu Isah, has said that processes for the payment of beneficiaries of Retirement and Death Benefits who do not have bank details have commenced this week.

Prof. Isah, who disclosed this in a statement on Thursday, March 30, said that beneficiaries will be identified by Local Government Pension Desk Officers as well as their counterparts at various Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government.

Isah pointed out that 112 of these beneficiaries are in Batch 21 of state pensioners while 134 local government pensioners fall under Batch 19 of this category, adding that verification payment will be done next week at various zonal headquarters.

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It will be recalled that Kaduna State Government had earlier released N920 million for the payment of Retirement and Death Benefits for both state and local government beneficiaries under the Defined Benefit of the old pension Scheme on March 9.

In the payment schedule, state pensioners will get N400 million while local government beneficiaries will receive N520 million.

Last November, Governor Nasir El-Rufai had approved N900 million for the payment of Accrued Rights for retirees and families of deceased beneficiaries under the new Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).

The Executive Secretary of Kaduna State Pension Bureau, Isah, had said that the amount covered batch 54 for the state and local governments retirees and families of the deceased.

Prof Isah further explained that payment of retirees under the Contributory Pension Scheme is being done by the Pension Funds Administrators (PFAs), adding that government will only pay the past savings.

According to her, such savings which is known as Accrued Rights, is the retirees’ entitlements prior to the commencement of the Contributory Pension Scheme in 2017, and they are paid to PFAs instead of individual beneficiaries.

Giving breakdown of the payment, the Executive Secretary had said that N600 million has been allocated to the state retirees and deceased families, while N300 million was allocated to local governments retirees and families of the deceased.

The November 2022 release came two weeks after Governor El-Rufai had earlier approved N1.16 billion for the payment of gratuity for batch 17 local government pensioners and batch 19 of State Government retirees and families of deceased under the old Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS).

The Star