28 Feb 2012

Fiji pension scheme renewal may reveal bogus retirees

6:16 pm on 28 February 2012

The Fiji National Provident Fund says some people may not have signed up for the new pension scheme because they are bogus pensioners.

The new FNPF pension scheme comes into force on Thursday, with the FNPF saying about 2,500 of its 11,000 pensioners are yet to be validated.

Tevita Nagataleka at the FNPF says staff have gone out to pensioners, who are immobile, to sign them up, and about 300 overseas pensioners can be confirmed over skype.

He says there's been an extensive three-month public campaign, and he's unsure why there are still more than 2,000 to be confirmed.

"W e are suspecting a significant number of those that have not turned up are probably or could be bogus pensioners. Maybe they have deceased, they have passed on or maybe some are receiving pensions which are not supposed to. Moving forward in the new scheme, it's new slate for us in terms of clean records for new pensioners."

Tevita Nagataleka says pensioners have until the end of Wednesday to be validated, and if they fail to do so, their pension will be suspended.

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