PENSIONERS TO SMILE SOON, SAYS PENCOM AG DG
PENSIONERS TO SMILE SOON, SAYS PENCOM AG DG
National Pension
Commission (PenCom) Acting Director-General, Mrs Aisha Dahir-Umar has said
pensioners will soon smile as the Federal Government is set to pay the next
batch of retirees.
Speaking with The
Nation, Dahir-Umar said PenCom had been working on modalities for payment
to enable it to release substantial funds for the retirees, adding that
retirees that perfected their documentation and verification would be captured
for the payments in the next batch.
The PenCom chief
commended President Muhammudu Buhari for attending to retirees’well-being by
settling accrued pension rights for that period.
“Despite
conflicting demands for available cash, President Buhari had always expressed
concern about the plight of workers and pensioners.
“It has brought
relief to thousands of our elders who have served and deserve to be paid their
entitlements promptly and fully,” she said.
She further said
some pensioners in the last batch that did not receive their pension must have
been caused by errors in documentation and verification process.
“Such also may be
caused by late documentation.’’
She denied
allegations that the commission and Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) delayed
payments and misappropriated pensions funds.
She said the
commission and the PFAs were being watched by the Federal Government and guarded
by core principles that could not be truncated.
She said the PFAs
paid the pensioners that registered under them without delay, once the Federal
Government released the fund through PenCom.
Dahir-Umar said the
micro-pension scheme was expected to help raise the number of pension
contributors to 20 million by next year and 30 million by 2024. It was also
expected to generate about N3 trillion to the pension assets, while mobilising
about 12 million contributors within five years.
“Micro pensions is
a scheme tar-geted at self-employed people, especially those with irregular
income, usually in the informal sector and are largely financially uninformed
with limited or no access to financial services, especially pension plan.
“This segment,
which is estimated to be 70 percent of the country’s population, largely exists
in Nigeria as artisans and self-employed persons,” she said.