Pensioners kick over plan to scrap PTAD, non-inclusion in minimum wage c’ttee

The Nigeria Union of Pensioners, South-West Zone, has criticised the federal government’s decision to scrap the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD).

The pensioners on Thursday, decried that the supposed scrapping of the PTAD would do more harm than good to them.

Recall that the Federal Government during the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting held on Monday in Abuja  decided to scrap the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD)and  transfer it functions to the Federal Ministry of Finance.

The government noted that the decision  to scrap some agencies, commissions, parastatals and merge, relocate them to  was to reduce the cost of governance.

However, the union’s public relations officer, Olusegun Abatan, during a meeting of state chairman, secretaries and leaders of the union held at the NUP secretariat Abeokuta, Ogun state noted that before PTAD came, pensioners were treated inhumanly and had their pensions fraudulently stolen by government personnel who managed it.

Abatan while emphasizing that the PTAD will be dissolve upon the death of the last pensioner, as stated in section 49 of the Act noted that, the union still has over one hundred thousand living pensioners and urged the president Bola Tinubu to keep it as the entity responsible for overseeing pension matters for all retirees.

He appealed to President Tinubu to avoid being ill-informed by some self-serving civil servants saying that if at all PTAD will be scrapped it is a creation of law and must be repeal through same process by the National Assembly.

“PTAD is the baby of the law birthed by the National Assembly on June 25, 2004. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should avoid being misinformed by rapacious civil servants. To scrap it must go back to the National Assembly, any step taken to unilaterally scrap the PTAD without the imprimatur of the National Assembly is a violation of the law of the land and to that effect null and void and of no effect”.

Meanwhile the union also lamented its exclusion from the minimum wage tripartite committee. 

While expressing their discomfort to the Observer status, they maintained that the Nigeria labour congress and Trade union congress cannot articulate their position and appealed that NUP be given full membership of the tripartite committee.