Sharon Ikeazor, Executive Secretary of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate, has said no fewer than 4,000 registered names are “ghosts” among the 20,000 Police pensioners inherited by the PTAD.

The ghost pensioners, according to Ikeazor, were discovered during the ongoing pensioner verification and biometric data capturing exercise for pensioners who retired from Federal Government agencies and parastatals in Edo and Delta states.

She said, “When we took on Police pension, we had over 20,000 pensioners on our payroll.

“By the time we concluded the verification, we got 16,000 pensioners and that is a lot of savings for government and the genuine pensioners are now being paid.

“The same for civil service pensions. By the time we concluded the verification, we had a lot of savings for government because those who were irregularly put on that payroll by the last administration have been taken off and those genuine pensioners who were dropped were replaced.”