Publicity, key to success of contributory pension scheme

The Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) is 12 years old but millions of Nigerians are yet to key in. Some don’t even know exactly what the scheme is meant to serve thus unwilling to buy-in.

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) statistics says the current pension coverage in Nigeria under the formal Contributory Pension Scheme is put at 7.24 million as at September, 2016 and this represents a paltry 7.7 percent of total labour force in Nigeria (private and public sector contributors).

Though PenCom and the pension fund administrators have done a lot to publicise the CPS thus far, stakeholders in the pension industry have consistently called for increased awareness and publicity on the relatively new scheme.

For instance, Comrade Issa Aremu of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), recently made a media appraisal of the coverage of CPS and said: “The Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), after 12 years of experimentation in Nigeria, is still battling with triple problems of acceptability, transition and how to harness the opportunities in the informal sector and the economy in general.”

Also, Mr. Yusuf Alli, the Managing Editor, Northern Operation, of The Nation newspaper in a paper titled “The Role of the Media in Reporting the Pension Industry” observed that “the scheme up till date has acceptability problem because some persons who are familiar with the old scheme and its workings are yet to come to terms with the CPS.

“Experts are of the opinion that public awareness is a major challenge confronting the future of the Contributory Pension Scheme. Many have said effective use of on robust coverage of the pension scheme. “It is obvious that the media ought to improve on its coverage of the pension industry by devoting more pages and airtime to it.

“It is time for the media to project emerging issues in the pension industry. The nation is in economic recession, politicians are desperately looking for cash. Some of them are already eyeing over N5.2 trillion accruable as pension fund assets.

“The media needs to be vigilant because Pension Reform is yet to be fully birthed. Any politicallyinduced abortion of our dream for the pension industry will spell doom for our collective survival,” he noted.

“On its part, PenCom needs to design a robust media plan to reach out to more Nigerians than it is currently doing. It is not out of place to set aside 1-5% of your annual budget for media engagement. The PFAs are doing a lot on this to the extent that they have seized the initiative from PenCom. You need to carry the media along on every step or activity. For instance, when you sanction some stakeholders, you shield such from the media in your attempt to be over-protective of the industry,” he noted.

“This commission should also embark on aggressive campaign by collaborating with trade unions at the federal and state levels on the benefit of CPS,” he also said.

Meanwhile, Sigma Pensions, one of the leading PFAs in Nigeria, has been sponsoring weekly educative publication on the contributory pension scheme in the Daily Trust newspaper. This weekly exposure on pensions has become a veritable source of information on the CPS to the general public.

Other PFAs are enjoined to emulate the efforts of Sigma Pensions to help deepen the contributory pension scheme.