Pensioners Smart Card: FG To Save N42.6bn Annually – Maina

The chairman, Presidential Pension’s Reform Task Force Team, (PRTFT), Alhaji Abdulrasheed Maina, said yesterday that the country will save not less than N42.6b annually from the newly introduced identification smart card registration for eligible pensioners in the country.

Maina, who gave the hint, at the launch of the e-pension smart card for paramilitary pensioners in Abuja, said that the smart cards, which is the first of its kind in Nigeria, was aimed at modifying the concept of pension management in the country as well as correcting the anomaly associated with the sector.?

He expressed optimism that the strategy would? yield positive result and?? boasted that? his team had? made a recovery of about N181 billion following the use of the biometric verification system in plugging leakages occasioned by the menace of ghost workers in the public sector.

The task team boss explained that it would reduce government capital expenditure as a result of the removal of administrative capital items.

“The smart card is the apex of the restructuring of the pension administration. The task force has reached 95 percent because all the information gotten from the biometrics is contained in a chip in that card,” he said.