FG Spends N356 Billion on Pension, Gratuity in 2021

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has revealed that the Federal Government spent N356.12 billion on pensions and gratuity in the 2021 financial year.

Apex bank revealed this in its report, ‘Federal Government recurrent expenditure’. The amount was N3.48 billion below the N359.6 billion recorded in 2020.

However, in spite of the huge yearly allocations, federal retirees have said they were being owed, among other issues.

Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) in charge of the Defined Benefits Scheme under the Federal Government, had earlier claimed it inherited pension liabilities of  N129.48 billion.

In a capacity workshop where a presentation titled ‘Parastatals Pension Department’ was delivered, it said PTAD inherited an estimated amount of N32.77bn, N28.96bn and N67.75bn owed pensioners of the Treasury Funded Parastatal, Ex-PHCN and defunct agencies respectively.

Dr. Chioma Ejikeme, the Executive Secretary of PTAD, held a meeting with the executive members of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners and the Federal Civil Service Pensioners Branch.

The directorate said in a statement that, “PTAD boss informed the union executives that following the expanded computation project embarked on by the directorate in 2020, and going through the career documents submitted by pensioners during verification, it was discovered that 14,836 pensioners in the Civil Service Pension Department were being overpaid.

“At the end of the meeting, both parties agreed that the affected pensioners will be contacted and informed of the directorate’s plan to properly place them on the right monthly pension from the month of July 2022, while the modalities to recover the overpayment will be worked out in due course.”