Pension: Trustfund urges workers to report defaulting employers

Trustfund Pension Ltd, has urged employees to report any employer who failed to comply with the Contributory Pension Schemes to serve as deterrent to others.

Trustfund Pension Head of Customers Relationship Management, Mrs Omoesiri Omoagege stated this at this year`s `Trust fund retirees’ forum’ held in Abuja. She warned that it is a punishable offence for employers not to make pension remittance for their employees.

She said, “And for people that do not make remittances for their employees, we have a whole lot of that, employees report their employers to us and what do we do? We write the employers, stating what the law says, let them know it is a punishable offence and if they do not respond by making remittances, we report the cases to the National Pension Commission which has registered agency that goes around recovering this fund, and even as a penalty, shut down some businesses.”

On payment delay, she lamented that most people don’t like documentation, which according to her, could cause payment delay.

“We are not a country that likes documentation, our people don’t like too many forms. There are things you have to do before retirement, there is what we call pre-retirement notification, your employer will tell you, you are about to retire, Trust Fund Pensions Ltd by the records, will also tell you , you are about to retire and these are the things you need to get in place.

“But some just shunned these notifications. Then for those in public sector, the Federal Government, there is what you call pre-retirement verification, an exercise they have to do. It will shock you that a whole lot of our retirees do not go for that pre-retirement verification and because they don’t do that, it affects when their bonds will be paid.”

On retirees’ complaint over pension increment, she said, “The pension enhancement scheme basically is for those that retired between 2007 and 2014. It is a scheme that enhances their monthly pensions, meaning there was an increment on their monthly pension and there was a template that was done by the National Pension Commission based on which the increment is applied to individual retirees savings account.

“It is not a fixed percentage; it is based on your age, based on your balance at retirement and also based on your balance as at December 2016.”