As a follow-up to the last nationwide pensioners verification exercise conducted from April 3 to 26, 2006, the National Pension Commission, PENCOM, is to begin the recertification of verified pensioners. This is aimed at fishing out those who might have dubiously got verified during the last exercise.
PENCOM, in collaboration with the six pension departments conducted a nationwide verification exercise for all existing federal pensioners in the country during the period.
The departments involved were the armed forces, police, federal universities, customs, immigrations and prisons pension office, office of the head of civil service of the federation and Federal Capital Territory Administration. The verification exercise was conducted in 111 centres across the nation.
The exercise, for the first time in the country, involved capturing the biometric data of pensioners that included their passport photographs, fingerprints and scanning of their original documents. This was designed to address the hydra- headed problem of ghost workers that defied all solutions in the past. After the verification exercise, a Pension Payroll Management System was to be deployed to manage and get the actual number of pensioners. The primary objectives of the exercise was to conclusively determine the number of legitimate pensioners currently on the federal payroll, verify each pensioner’s actual monthly payment so as to determine the government’s pension liability for existing pensioners.
