Treasury resumes pension payroll verification exercise
Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development has resumed pension payroll verification exercise aimed at confirming the authenticity of pensioners.
The first phase of the exercise faced hurdles such as long queues which delayed the process.
Treasury spokesperson, Davis Sado, Sunday said the second phase starts today and ends on October 3.
“We will be collecting information using the biometric system of the National Registration Bureau. We are mindful that the people we are dealing with are advanced, in terms of age; so, there are measures we have put in place so that the process should be smooth.
“We will be having two teams at each centre unlike in the first phase, when we only had one. The number of days per district have also been increased to three, unlike during the first phase when we only had one day. On top of that, the system has been upgraded to biometric, where it will be connected to the National Registration Bureau,” Sado said.
Sado said the ministry would make sure verification forms, which would be used as backup, are readily available.
The Treasury spokesperson further said pensioners who verified their names in Mzuzu, where records at the Treasury Cashier’s office were destroyed by fire during the recent demonstrations, should not panic as their data were not affected.
“Those who verified before the incident of the fire should not worry or come again because the fire did not affect their records. This time, we are targeting those that did not participate in the first phase,” he said.
The first phase of the head count exercise started on May 6 and ended on June 9 this year.
Recently, the ministry said about K50 billion was spent on paying pensioners per year but this varies every year depending on the number of people retiring from the government.
National Audit Office carried out a similar exercise in 2015 in order to flush out ghost civil servants.
