Bio-metric registration must be given a “human face” – Pensioners
Pensioners under CAP 30 in the Volta Region Thursday appealed to the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department to give the bio-metric registration of Government Pensioners a “human face”.
The exercise, which takes off in the Volta Region from Tuesday, 26 July to Monday, 9 August 2011, is to update the data base of all government pensioners.
The pensioners would be expected to provide their Pension Advice and Pension Form One in addition to other pieces of documentary evidence to authenticate their pension status.
But the pensioners expressed reservations regarding insistence on the provision of the Pension Advice and Pension Form One indicating that many pensioners seemed to have misplaced or lost those forms.
Pension Advice and Pension Form One were documentary evidences of transition from active service to pension, Mr Kwesi Owusu, Director of Administration of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department, explained.
He said these documents were essential to the exercise which had a “human face” but that human face would not be allowed “to create room for abuse” and render the exercise a failure.
Mr Owusu said pensioners needed to provide documentary evidences to prove that they actually worked for government.
He explained that the aim of the exercise was not to deny pensioners their pension but to ensure that only genuine pensioners were paid what they deserved.
Mr Owusu appealed to executives of the pensioners association to provide the committee undertaking the exercise with information on their members who were incapacitated so that arrangements could be made to have them registered within the stipulated period.
He urged relatives of pensioners who were incapacitated to assist in getting them registered biometrically.
Mr Owusu said any pensioner who failed to register within the stipulated period would have disqualified him or herself from continuous enjoyment of pension.
On widow’s pension, Mr Owusu said widows of pensioners were entitled to that pension for as long as they have not re-married.
Meanwhile Mr Moses Akagla, Volta Regional Director of the Accountant General’s Department asked pensioners in the region to listen to radio announcements on the date and location for the bio-metric registration in their respective districts.
Source: GNA