Pencom proffers solutions to MDAS’ pension challenges

THE National Pension Commission (Pencom) has taken the bold step to address the challenges against the progress of Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) in Federal Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAS) across the country. Pencom, at the weekend, in Lagos, gathered Pension Desk Officers ( PDOS) of MDAS, mainly from the South West zone of the country, to educate them on how to handle workers’ nominal rolls and the workings of the CPS to enable them improve on their services, as well as educate other employees in their organisations.

Head, Contributions Bond Redemption Department, Pencom, Lona Loyinmi, while declaring the workshop open, said the event was organised to educate the PDOS and get first hand information from them on areas of challenges in carrying out their duties.

The Director and Head, Co rpo ra te Communications Department, Peter Aghahowa, said the commission expects the PDOS to be able to operate seamlessly and manage pension matters within their ministries, parastatals and agencies even before they escalate to Pencom and Pension Fund Administrations (PFAS).

“As part of our enlighten- ment programme, we are meeting with the PDOS in the South West zone as we have done in some other parts of the country. They are crucial stakeholders in the Scheme so we have to use this kind of event to educate them on the developments in pension industry.

“It is also a good session to get feedback from them because they are the pension officers in different institutions and they interact with the employees directly.

“This is why we take the workshop very seriously. It is important to us so that we can bring them up to date with the developments and they can also have the opportunity to get clarification on various issues,” he said.

Explaining the delays in pension payment and nonremittance of monthly contributions, he said: “With regards to remittance, you know that the contributions are done monthly.

“There are challenges, but if you look at where we are coming from to where we are now, you will see that there have been considerable improvements. And this is one of the reasons we have this event with the MDAS.

“The government remittances are done mostly by Pencom while pension contributions are deducted from the source and these monies are sent to Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).”