‘I’m Alive’: PTAD Begins Confirmation For Police, Customs, Others To Fish Out Ghost, Dead Govt Pensioners

The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate has officially unveiled a game changing technology to fish out ghost and dead government pensioners under the Directorate.

The technology dubbed, ‘I’m Alive’ Confirmation Solution (IAAC), will be used for a verification exercise that will begin with the Police Directorate from the 14th April to October 13, 2023.

The IAAC is an online application designed to enable pensioners under the Defined Benefits Scheme to easily confirm they’re still alive from the comfort of their homes or neighbourhood, using either a smartphone or a computer system.

The Executive Secretary of the Directorate, Chioma Ejikeme, said on Friday during the unveiling in Abuja that the technology will reduce the cost of the old field verification method.

She said, “Continuing with periodic field verifications to ascertain the aliveness of our pensioners is not only expensive both for the Pensioners and government but is also a stressful exercise for our senior citizens. Looking for a solution that would eliminate field verifications became imperative and gave birth to the I Am Alive Confirmation (IAAC) Solution.

“We wish to use this opportunity to assure our esteemed pensioners that the “I Am Alive” confirmation solution has been designed with their utmost welfare in mind leveraging on accuracy, reliability, user -friendliness and convenience. PTAD has over the years promised that the era of bringing out our aged pensioners for field verification is over, and we are standing by this promise.”

PTAD inaugurated the “I AM ALIVE” Confirmation Solution back in October 2021. The technology was conceived in 2018 while the conceptual development began in 2020.

The technology was inspired by PTAD’s desire to take away the stress of continuous field verification for Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS) pensioners who are already on PTAD’s payroll.

Also, the technology will cut the cost of manual field verification exercise as well as “fish out dead and ghost pensioners.”

The exercise began with the pilot phase which sampled 50,000 pensioners randomly selected from the four operational departments in the Directorate.

The directorates are :Parastatals Pension Department (PaPD); Police Pension Department (PPD); Civil Service Pension Department (CSPD) and the Customs Immigration and Prisons Pension Department (CIPPD).

PITAD has over 220,000 pensioners on its payroll.

She said “To ensure an efficient and effective delivery, the availability of the Confirmation program has been staggered according to departments as follows: Police Pensioneers 14th April to 13th October; Customs, Immigration and Prisons Pensioners 1st June to 31st December 2023; 1st July to 31st January 202 and Parastatals Pensioners from 1st August to 31st February 2024.”

Ejikeme said any pensioner that misses the verification will be “assumed dead except proven otherwise.”

Ejikeme said pensioners in the various departments have been given a six-month grace period to complete their “I Am Alive” Confirmation.

The Executive Secretary said PITAD is planning to provide a health insurance scheme for the pensioners but ‘I AM ALIVE’ will be tied to the health insurance.

Listing some of the benefits of the innovation, she said ” Government funding of pensions will be accurately estimated as deceased pensioners are immediately removed from the Payroll.”

She noted that funding for field verification will also be completely eliminated.

According to her, pensioners will no longer be required to travel long distances with the attendant stress and inconvenience of attending verification exercises.

“The result of the “I Am Alive” Confirmation (IAAC) Solution is received via SMS to the phone of the Pensioner,” she added.

PTAD took over the functions of the various Pension Departments of the Public Service and is responsible for payment to existing retirees of the FG that retired up to June, 2007 and thus exempted from the Contributory Pensions Scheme.

According to the Act that set up PTAD, the Directorate will cease to exist after the demise of the last pensioner entitled to pension under the Defined Benefit Scheme of the Public Service of the Federation.