PENCOM Records Boost In Registered Contributors

The National Pension
Commission (PENCOM) has recorded an increase in the number of registered contributors for the Contributory Pension Scheme nationwide.
According to statistics obtained from the pension website on Friday about 6.39 million public and private sector workers had registered for the scheme.
The report show that the 6.39 million registered contributors was for the 2014 financial year, rising progressively from 5.3 million and 5.9million in 2012 and 2013 respectively.
The report-further indicated that 4.01 million, 4.5million and 4.9million Nigerian workers registered in 2009, 2010, and 2011 respectively. While 1.6 million, 2.7 million and 4 million joined the scheme in 2006, 2007 and 2008, respectively.
The Contributory Pension Scheme was introduced in 2004 with the signing into law of the Pension Reform Act. The Act was later amended in 2014 and mandated government and private employers with at least three workers to join the contributory pension scheme.
The commission said 24 states had dropped the Pay-As-You-Go pension scheme in favour of the CPS, stressing further that 12 other states are at various stages of implementing the scheme, while one state has yet to commence the process of implementing the scheme.
However, figures obtained on the total number of retirees under the scheme revealed that as at the third quarter of 2014 the scheme had 111,072 retirees registered; stressing that the retirees were accessing their pensions either as programmed withdrawal or as annuity.
Retirees under the programmed withdrawal had obtained a lump sum of N239,08bn while the Pension Fund Administrators are paying the pensioners an average of N3.04bn monthly.
The commission said public sector accounted for 3,109 retirees 57.20 per cent while the private sector accounted for 2,326 retirees 42.80 per cent in the third quarter 2014.
Meanwhile, the Director General, Pencom, Mrs Chinelo Anohu Amazu said the commission had scaled up its compliance and enforcement strategies in order to enhance the implementation of the Pension Reform Act 2014.
Anohu-Amazu said sanctions were applied in line with the compliance framework.
She said the commission had employed different approaches to encourage employers to embrace voluntary compliance with the law such as public enlightenment media campaigns and collaborations with regulatory and professional bodies.
She said the commission had also engaged consultants to recover unremitted pension deductions from workers’ salaries.

Philip Okparaji