The Cross River State Pensions Board in Nigeria said it saved N26 million between last year and second quarter of 2013 following the introduction of an electronic payment system.

John Adie, director of the State Pensions Board said the board saved the sum of N17 million in 2012 while N9 million was recovered in payments made in the first and second quarters of 2013.

The board introduced the new payment system in 2012.

“In the past, our staff would have to travel to all parts of the state to deposit checks in banks for subsequent crediting of each pensioners account but in 2012 we came up with the idea of paying the pensioners electronically through their banks here in Calabar,” Adie said.

He added it was discovered that some pensioners had multiple accounts through which pension money was deposited.

The process of e-payment, he said, therefore led to the recovery of “huge” sums of money.

“We kept releasing monies to those accounts for three months and when nobody came forward to make any claims, we knew that those accounts were phony so we had to stop releasing money to them and went ahead to recoup the monies in the banks which gave us the figure we had as recovered funds,” said Adie.