Niger has no record of pensioners, says DG, Pensions Board

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Niger State has no record of its pensioners and that is making it difficult to meet its obligations to retirees, according to Alhaji Usman Mohammed, Director-General, Niger State Pension Board.
“There are no records; this has militated against a smooth take-off since I assumed office in 2016,” Mohammed said in Minna on Sunday.
He regretted that records of pensioners were not available, “especially at local government pension units where there are no reference files”.
The Director-General said that the first thing he did was to design a system where all the files they met on ground were numbered, in conjunction with local government audit units.‎
“The files we numbered were in thousands and that affected our speed,” he said.
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The official said that the board had already discovered 50 recycled files and had marked them out for “special scrutiny”.
He disclosed that Governor Abubakar Bello had mandated the Auditor-General verify all payments to pensioners so as to ascertain the true figure government would work with.
“When that report is submitted, a lot of weeding will be carried and that will ease our job,” he said.