The Permanent Secretary, Special Duties, Federal Ministry of Finance, Mohammed Dikwa, disclosed this on Tuesday.
The federal government had paid the first 50 per cent of the entitlements to the pensioners who had completed their verification exercise in October 2018.
The Nation reported that the pensioners had earlier held former finance minister, Zainab Ahmed, ‘captive’ for hours in her office on Tuesday, protesting against delayed verification
Mr Dikwa said the offensive meted on the former minister by the protesting retirees was as a result of the communication lapses between his office, the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA) and pensioners.
“There was a bit of delay as the verification and data capturing of the NAL pensioners was supposed to start by 10 a.m. and end by 2 p.m. started by 2 p.m. after some complaints from the pensioners. The pensioners were worried that the delay in the verification process might lead to some of them not being captured on Wednesday, thereby, forcing them to incur more expenses by passing the night in Abuja,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of NAL chapter of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Sam Nzene, alleged that the consultant who was to conduct the screening ‘disappeared’.
He told reporters that the consultant claimed that the government was owing him for past services and so he would not provide further services.
