Politics
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CHINELO Anohu-Amazu, director general, National Pension Commission, has commended Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State for his exceptional leadership in providing a renewed impetus to the implementation of the Contributory Pension Scheme, CPS, for the benefit of civil servants in the state.
Anohu-Amazu made this remarks at the ceremony to launch the commencement of the payment of retirement benefits under the contributory pension scheme in Kaduna State, at the Banquet Hall, State House, Kawo, Kaduna, on Monday, February 28.
According to her, “Indeed, this is a milestone engendered by the diligence of the current Kaduna State Government in its renewed efforts at implementing the CPS. We also congratulate the retirees who are being paid their retirement benefits after many meritorious years of service to Kaduna State,” she said.
She said that the main essence of the Pension Reform of 2004 was to ensure that retirement benefits are paid when due and in a sustainable manner. “Therefore, with today’s occasion, the retirees of the Kaduna State Government would clearly experience its positive impact. It is noteworthy to highlight the enormous work done by the Kaduna State Government in attaining this milestone within record time.
“This is ample testimony to the exceptional efficiency exhibited by His Excellency, Mr. Governor, with impactful achievements across all sectors. The special focus on ensuring that Kaduna State implements the CPS is not fortuitous. It may interest this august gathering to know that His Excellency, Mr. Governor was one of the main architects of the Pension Reform which the Federal Government embarked upon in 2004. The quest to reform the Nigerian pension sector began during the tenure of His Excellency, Mr. Governor, while serving as the Director General of the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE).
“I recall that as we worked on the privatization of big public corporations, a recurring issue in all of them was a huge pension deficit which hampered the process considerably. Therefore, Mallam El-Rufai recommended the emergence of an enduring solution to the unsustainable pension liabilities for the public and private sectors,” she said.
The government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo embraced the Pension Reform by setting up the Fola Adeola Committee on Pension Reform. “I was seconded by the BPE then to serve in this Committee whose work culminated in the enactment of the Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2004 which introduced the CPS. In over twelve years of implementation, the CPS has clearly instituted a sustainable pension scheme that had largely succeeded in stemming the tide of unsustainable pension liabilities, while ensuring payment to retirees,” she said.
“The revised PRA 2014 sought to deepen the Pension Reform in recognition of the modest gains recorded within the first decade of implementation. It therefore extended coverage of the CPS to States and Local Governments. The Commission has enhanced support to the States in facilitating their implementation of the CPS by providing a bespoke technical assistance of guided implementation, through our restructured State Operations Department.
“I am pleased to note that the Kaduna State Government has taken full advantage of this support with outstanding results achieved in a short span of time. We are happy that one of our competent staff, Dr. Dan Ndackson, an indigene of Kaduna State, is currently serving as the Executive Secretary of the Kaduna State Pension Bureau, driving this change process towards full implementation of the CPS. It is also gratifying that the Bureau is focused on acquiring the appropriate Information and Communication Technology infrastructure, the Pension Management System (PMIS) in order to facilitate seamless operations,” she said.
The director-general assured the Governor that the Pencom would continue to provide the required support towards ensuring that Kaduna State attains full implementation status of the CPS.
She also said that the current economic challenges also provide an opportunity to implement strategies for effective financial management by the States. “The huge liabilities which usually build up in the old Defined Benefits Scheme can be mitigated by the adoption and implementation of the CPS by States in the Federation.” The CPS provides a mechanism for eliminating these liabilities while the regular contributions into the scheme are undoubtedly less burdensome. “I wish to assure all States that the Commission would continue to provide all necessary support towards full implementation of the CPS. We have also empowered our Zonal Offices in the six geo-political Zones of the country to collaborate with the State Governments in that regard. In addition, we are also working on the introduction of the Micro Pension initiative to serve the informal sector of the economy which is dominant in States nationwide,” she said.
In his welcome address, Dan Ndackson, executive secretary, Kaduna State Pension Bureau, said the state expects a surge in the payroll for pensioners on the Defined Benefits Scheme in subsequent months due to the large number of people who retired towards the end of 2016 to avoid falling into the Contributory Pension Scheme whose files are yet to reach the Bureau for processing and inclusion in the payroll. “Unless MDAs and LGAs forward the files of all retirees under the Defined Benefits Scheme to the Bureau for processing in good time, our pension payroll may continue to rise throughout 2017. Conversely, we were not able to find many retirees under the CPS in the first quarter of 2017 due to the rush to take early retirement in 2016 especially by such people.”
The Bureau commenced biometric data capture of retirees using its own IT infrastructure and personnel as from November, 2016. With this initiative, the waiting time for retirees to be included in the pension payroll has reduced drastically to a maximum of one month after audit clearance, thereby saving the retiree the pains of staying longer after retirement without income. The application deployed for this data capture is robust enough to permit diverse queries and reports to be generated from the database.
Furthermore, to address the challenge of the dreaded pensioner verification exercises that bring untold hardships to our frail and sick senior citizens, as part of the proposed Pension Management Information System, PMIS, of the Bureau, the Bureau has concluded plans with the SIFMIS Project Managers, Gems Consulting Company, for a stress-free verification exercise that requires minimum effort on the part of the pensioner.
“When the application is deployed, pensioners would only be required to provide their thumbprints within specific time intervals at a branch of any bank in Nigeria to confirm that they are still alive. With that confirmation, they would continue to enjoy their monthly pension unhindered. However, failure to do that after the specified time interval, they would automatically be suspended from the pension payroll until they do so,” he said
— Mar 1, 2017 @ 18:20 GMT
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