She made this known at the occasion of the Oversight Visit of the Senate Committee on Establishment & Public Services to the National Pension Commission on Wednesday, April 14, 2021.

The DG, who thanked the Senate for the cordial working relationship that has existed between them from the inception of the Commission in 2014, said that the PenCom Act made the Commission the sole regulator and supervisor of all pension matters in Nigeria.

According to her, PenCom has been able to transform the pension sector in Nigeria just within 16 years of its reform.

“In recent years, the Commission has introduced the Micro Pension Plan to enable informal sector workers to participate in the CPS and also continued to empower the RSA holders by broadening their choices through Multi fund Structure of pension fund investment and the opening of the RSA Transfer window.

“Our scorecard includes many positive feats, like the licensing of 22 PFAs, 7 CPFAs, 4 PFCs, and many Approved Existing Pension Schemes in the private sector. RSA registration has reached 9.27 million as of January 2021.

“The value of accumulated pension assets has also reached N12.3 trillion as at January 2021.

She said the fund was currently invested in varied, but quality financial instruments, all tailored towards the development of the Nigerian economy.

Furthermore, payment of pensions under the CPS is now seamless, prompt, and consistent.

The PenCom DG said that one of the major challenges experienced by the commission was the delay in the payment of retirement benefits.

“Some Federal Government employees who retired from March 2020 to March 2021 under the CPS is due to non-payment of their Accrued Pension Rights.

“This challenge, which started in 2014, was essentially triggered by the appropriation of insufficient amounts for payment of Accrued Pension Rights of FGN retirees and further aggravated by late or non-release of full appropriated amounts.

“Other challenges include FGN’s non-compliance with the new minimum statutory rate of pension contribution of 18% since 2014, non-payment of approved 15% and 33% pension increases to pensioners under the CPS, non-payment of shortfall for payment of full retirement benefits of retired Heads of Service and Permanent Secretaries, and non-payment of FGN Pension Protection Levy.

These, according to her, have created a sad and negative impression on the full realization of the objectives of the CPS in Nigeria.

Irrespective of the challenges, the PenCom has been viable, competitive, relevant, and has remained self-sufficient, having made huge investments both in ICT and in human capital.

“As you are aware, PenCom is a self-funded agency, run basically with Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, with little subvention from the Treasury.

“The operations of PenCom have been fairly smooth right from inception to date. Our supervisory activities continued to be substantially automated, thus necessitating huge investments in ICT. Furthermore, the nature of our regulatory and supervisory responsibilities necessitated substantial investment in our human capital in order to remain effective, competitive, and relevant in a continuously changing environment.

“PenCom is currently housed at this Head Office building, which is owned by the Commission.

“There are also six functional zonal offices of the Commission at the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria,” she said.

Although she appreciates the role played by this Senate Committee in the past, through its intervention in the matters of payment of outstanding pension liabilities of the Federal Government, she, however, solicited for the continued support of the National Assembly to assist the Commission in surmounting the challenge which according to her is a moving target that increases on a monthly basis as FGN employees retire.

“Another issue that is worth mentioning to this distinguished Committee is the persistent complaints against certain sections of the Pension Reform Act 2014, which need amendments.

“This is normal with every new system and the experience of the CPS in Nigeria is bound to be the same. Consequently, the Commission had obtained inputs from critical stakeholders and cataloged their proposed amendments of provisions of the PRA 2014.

‘However, as was done in the first review exercise that birthed the present Act, it is imperative to subject the proposed amendments to extensive experts’ and stakeholders’ engagements prior to presentation to the Federal Executive Council and the National Assembly for further legislative action,” she said.

She, however, promised that the Commission would continue to innovate in order to consolidate the gains of the pension reform in Nigeria.

– Apr. 15, 2021 @ 12:42 GMT