The Association of Retired Federal Senior Public Officers of Nigeria (ARFESPON) has called on the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) to adopt the officially approved monthly benefit payment structure recommended by the Salaries and Wages Commission in the payment of its members’ monthly pension benefits.

The association also advised PTAD to ensure the implementation of section 173 of the Constitution, which advocates an automatic increase in pension benefits anytime there is an increase in salaries and allowances for serving public employees.

It said PTAD had vowed not to implement the aspect of the Constitution on an increase in pension benefits every five years if there was no salary increase for serving government workers.

The group noted that the issue of harmonisation of benefits payable to retirees, which its members have asked PTAD to effect, has been swept under the carpet, lamenting that some of the members of the cases have joined their ancestors in the course of the agitation.

The Chairman, ARFESPON Lagos Chapter, Olufemi Odewabi, urged the Executive Secretary of PTAD, Dr Chioma Ejikeme, to seize the opportunity of her second tenure to correct some mistakes and maltreatments she meted out to pensioners during her first tenure in office.

He lamented that most of the promises given to pensioners by the federal government through PTAD have remained unfulfilled to date.
Odewabi cited the example of harmonisation of benefits saying PTAD told the association it had set up a committee on that since January 2022 but that nothing has been done to effect the change.