Kaduna: We’ve Started Paying Pensioners Without Bank Accounts

The Kaduna State Pension Bureau has announced that it has started the process of paying retirement and death benefits to beneficiaries who do not have bank accounts.

Salamatu Isah, the Executive Secretary of the Bureau, said that local government pension desk officers and government ministry/department/agency counterparts would identify beneficiaries.

Batch 21 state pensioners have 112 beneficiaries. Batch 19 local government pensioners have 134 beneficiaries in this category, according to Isah. Next week, we will make verification payments at various zonal headquarters, she confirmed.

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The Kaduna state government recently released N920 million to settle outstanding pension liabilities, including death benefits and gratuity. The government expects to allocate N400 million to state pensioners and N520 million to local government beneficiaries.

In November 2022, Governor Nasir el-Rufai approved N900 million to pay accrued rights for retirees and families of deceased beneficiaries. This approval was done under the new Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS). According to Isah, this amount covers Batch 54 for state and local government retirees and families of deceased individuals.

Isah explained that the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) make retirees under the Contributory Pension Scheme payment. She went on to confirm that the government will only pay past savings.