Some of the ex-Nigeria Airways workers whose payment of 50 percent pension and other severance packages commenced in October were credited twice, according to Daily Independent reports.

Also, no fewer than 79 of the supposed beneficiaries of the N45 billion severance packages were yet to be paid any amount of money by officials of the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA), a department in the Ministry of Finance which was mandated to disburse the sums to the former workers of the national carrier.

According to Daily Independent report, no fewer than 100 beneficiaries received ‘alerts’ twice through their banks. About 6,000 of the former workers were slated for payment.

Some of the beneficiaries confirmed that they were actually credited twice by the Accountant-General Office and an account, training and operations, indicating Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) with 13 digits account number, 002 0076861038, was provided for them to return the excess payment.

But it was gathered that the leadership of the former workers prevailed on them not to refund the sum to any account provided for that purpose by the apex bank, suspecting foul play in the entire process.

However, when the former workers did not comply with the directive, it was gathered that officials of CBN collaborated with individual banks to revert the double payment seamless.

One of the beneficiaries of the double payment, Mr. Anthony Ileje, confirmed to newsmen that he was actually credited twice by the CBN, but was debited a few days after the “error,” stressing that rather than directing pensioners to return the money themselves, the same process used by either the CBN, PICA and Accountant General Office to credit workers twice should also be used to make the reversal.

Animashaun said the error occurred but that it had been addressed by the appropriate quarters.

He also confirmed that some of the former workers of the national carrier were yet to receive their benefits.

As at the last count, he said, those in that category were 79, but noted that most of them had issues with their bank details.

He explained that the payment was divided into five batches, saying as at last week, government had concluded payment for four batches, while the fifth batch would commence from today.

He said: “The payment is a process. Those who have not received are those who have issues with their bank details. At the end of the day, 79 names were returned by the CBN because of incorrect or inadequate details and they have been calling those affected for correction. There are five batches so far, four have been attended to.

“The fifth batch, which is remaining, are those who have issues with their account details and those who just did the verification in Abuja, which was closed about two weeks ago at the mop up centre in Abuja. Those are the ones remaining and most probably on Monday (today) the Ministry of Finance will take it to the Accountant-General Office and by Friday, they may get alerts.”

It would be recalled that the sum of N45 billion was expected to be disbursed to the entire former workers of the airline numbering 6000, but the government said it would disburse 50 percent of the sum, representing N22.5 billion in the first phase, while the other 50 percent would be disbursed within the next six months.

•Excerpted from a Daily Independent report

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