The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) has assured pensioners living outside Nigeria of being captured in the national database being created for retirees.
PTAD’s  Director  of  Pensions Support Service, Mrs Olufunmilayo Onafowokan, gave the assurance, recently while speaking  with newsmen on  the sidelines of a six-day verification exercise for pensioners in Ibadan.
She said  PTAD was partnering with  the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ensure that pensioners in the Diaspora, particularly those under the Defined Benefit Scheme, were verified.
Onafowokan also  said that the ongoing  verification exercise which started on Monday October 16, 2017, in Oyo and Ogun States, would help to create a digitalised database of pensioners.
“It is our aim to identify and ensure that genuine pensioners are paid every month  and after computation, those identified as having arrears would be paid,” she said.
She also expressed optimism that no fewer than 13,500 pensioners would have been verified in the South West Zone at the end of the exercise.
“After six days, we should have verified 8,000 pensioners in Oyo State and about 5,500 in Ogun State by Saturday,” she said.
She gave an assurance that PTAD had made adequate arrangements for those who were unable to participate in the exercise.
“We have an office in Lagos for the South West Zone that has been equipped to take care of pensioners that cannot attend any of our verification exercises.
“We also have a dedicated section  called the Mobile Verification Team  to attend to pensioners in the villages, hospitals  and those bedridden.
“Once we have been notified, their children can send us evidence to show the state of their incapability and we then go over for capturing.
“They can have this done in the comfort of their homes and if everything is sorted out, they will be pay rolled,” she said.
The Tide source reports that the exercise, which was hitch-free, was ongoing  simultaneously in  three centres in Ibadan and two centres in Abeokuta.