The Federal Government will begin payment of all outstanding pension and gratuity arrears to retired police officers in December, PR Nigeria has reported. The payment will also include the 33 per cent increment in pay for former officials of the force. The agency which is linked to the Nigerian government reports that the first step of the payment will commence between December 8 and 18 when the Pension Transition Arrangement Directorate, PTAD, headed by Nellie Mayshak will conduct the last biometric verification of police officers who retired on or before June 30, 2007. Family members and next of kin of deceased police officers whose final entitlements have not been settled were also invited to the venues of first phase of the exercise which will take place in the six police zonal formations in the northern parts of the country, it stated. The zones falling into the first phase are 1, 3, 4, 7, 10 and 12 with verification venues at Kano, Kaduna, Gombe, Makurdi, Jos and Bauchi. The arrears are expected to be paid along with December pension. However, due to inadequate logistics, the verification for ex-police officers based in Southern Nigeria is to commence early next year when their own arrears will also be paid immediately after. Pension offices for the civil service, police, customs, immigration and prisons department outside the contributory pension scheme were merged in November 2013 to form PTAD with Ms. Mayshak as Director General. The Pension Reform Act 2014 has now also merged all other treasury funded pension board of trustees like that of Nigeria Television Authority, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Nigerian Postal Service, Nigeria Railway Corporation, and former National Electric Power Authority. An official told PR Nigeria that the biometric verification exercise will be a one off event as a comprehensive electronic data base was being compiled to remove an instance whereby “old retired officers most of whom did not actually have a good life during service” will be repeatedly subjected to the indignity of queuing up every time. “Nigerian policemen have suffered for so long that their children are the most disadvantaged among public officials in the country and we must find a way to remove this trend,” Ms. Mayshak was quoted as saying when discussing this new arrangement. There are about 24,000 police pensioners currently receiving pensions across the country through the Government Integrated Financial Management System, GFMIS.