PenCom recovers N14.76bn from defaulting employers

The Acting Director-General, National Pension Commission (Pencom), Aisha Dahir-Umar said PenCom has recovered N14.76 billion outstanding pension contribution plus penalty through its recovery agents from defaulting employers.

Speaking at a one-day interactive session of the pension reform Act 2014 with the Organized Private Sector (OPS) in Lagos yesterday, she said the recovered fund comprise of principal contribution of N7.53bn and penalty of N7.23bn.

Dahir-Umar said the has been credited into the amount workers’ Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) while the penalty is meant to compensate the workers for the income that would have been earned.

While appreciating the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) for demonstrating unwavering commitment in the course of the recovery exercise, she said the commission issued Pension Clearance Certificates to 13,469 organizations with remittance of N110.69bn into the RSAs of 225,366 employees.

She said since January to date, 14,511 organizations had so far applied for the certificate in compliance with the provisions of the PRA 2014 by an employer.

Dahir-Umar however, urged private sector to apply for the transfer of their workers’ fund from Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) into their RSAs, stressing that to date, only 136,377 NSITF members have applied for their contributions to be transferred into their respective RSAs out of over 1.2m workers that transited from the NSITF Scheme to the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).

“I wish to implore all employers to encourage their employees who have contributed to the NSITF scheme to liaise with the PFAs and in particular Trustfund Pensions for guidance on how to have their contributions transferred to their RSAs.”

Meanwhile PenCom said is finalizing arrangements for the introduction of the Micro Pension Plan by the first quarter of 2019.

Dahir-Umar said the Information technology platform to drive the process is responsible for the delay and that it would be resolved in a few weeks.

“It can be written on stone that we will take off in January 2019, we have received the approval for the guideline from the office of the Secretary to the Government of the federation,” she noted.

The Micro pension seeks to extend the benefits of the CPS to the informal sector. it