The Nation Newspaper

Category: Pension

  • PTAD validates next-of-kins, to pay entitlements

    PTAD validates next-of-kins, to pay entitlements

    The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) is set to validate all Next-of-Kins (NOKs) of parastatals’ pensioners in readiness to pay entitlements of late employees.

    Its Director-General, Ms Nellie Mayshack made this known during a nationwide validation for NOKs in Lagos.

    According to her, the NOKs who were verified by the National Pension Commission (PenCom) between 2008 and 2012 during the Parastatals Pensioners Verification Exercise (PPVE) Phase 1, belong to the education and health sector workers who died while in active service.

    She said the exercise was held in six centres in five states and Abuja. They are Gombe, Kaduna, Enugu, Lagos and Edo.

    She said: “The NOKs were required to present documents, which include PenCom Verification Slip, Valid and proper means of Identification, Bank Account Number (NUBAN), Bank Verification Number (BVN) and one coloured passport photograph

    “In addition, families of NOKs who are now deceased were asked to attend the exercise with the death certificate of the deceased from a government recognised hospital and Letter of Administration. Sick and infirm NOKs should call PTAD toll-free telephone number before the commencement date for any special arrangements.

    “PTAD is exercising due diligence by validating the NOK records in readiness for payment to them. This is in view of the time lapse between the period of PenCom’s revalidation exercise and the payment period.”

  • NITEL, MTEL pensioners cry out over 10 years unpaid pension

    NITEL, MTEL pensioners cry out over 10 years unpaid pension

    NITEL, MTEL pensioners cry out over 10 year’s unpaid pension Pensioners of the defunct Nigeria Telecommunication Limited (NITEL) and its mobile arm, Mobile Telecommunications (MTEL) have cried out to President Muhammadu Buhari to end their 10 years of suffering by paying their pension benefits.

    The pensioners numbering over 2000??? said previous administrations have failed to pay their pension since former President, Olusegun Obasanjo sold and dissolved the organisation in 2006.

    Chairman, NITEL, MTEL pensioners, Iko Edem who made the call at a meeting held in Lagos said previous administration has not been fair to them.

    He however expressed confidence in the present administration of President Buhari.

    He said they have met with the present officials of the Federal Government and they have shown sympathy to them.

    He stated that following agitations by the affected pensioners, Government paid were paid five years pension as a pension pay off which they rejected.

    He said: “Our appeal is to the present government and we believe that they are listening to us. They told us that they feel a lot of injustice has been done to us and that they are looking into the matter. We have representatives in Abuja that is meeting with government and they are advising us on steps to take.

    “We made approaches to the past governments to no avail, only to be paid off five years pension right. We rejected it and sued Government at an Abuja High court and won. The Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) that sold NITEL went to court to appeal the judgment against us and won. We proceeded to the Supreme Court because we were not satisfied and this is the situation as at date.

    “It has not been easy for us at the Supreme Court because of the many cases at the Court. Presently, the attention of government is on political cases and that is why they have not heard our case up till now.  We filed our case in May last year and up till now they have not even heard us. But our lawyer has advised us to also go political and to do this we have to work with the government.

    “The present officials of government have sympatised with us. Many of us for instance served for 35 years. By the constitution of this country, once you have served in any institution, you are entitled to pension for life. It is however unfair for any government to stop our pensions and ask us to go for life. We are the only pensioner that government ask to go away with five years pension. There are other cases. They initially stopped our pension and when we protested, they paid us five years without negotiating with anyone of us. This is unacceptable to us.”

    He stressed that pensioners who served for 35 years including himself or retired voluntarily after 10 years are suppose earn pension for life adding that those who were exited from the service and have served 10 years in NITEL are also qualified for pensions.

    He noted that they are open for negotiation if they don’t want to pay them pension for life.

    We know the conditions for pay off which is that you either pay us 25 years pension salary or negotiate with us and whatever the two parties agree will be binding on us.

  • Lagos, Delta, Osun, Niger get N160bn from pension fund for infrastructure

    A total of N160 billion out of the N5.1 trillion pension fund has been invested in four States Bonds towards infrastructure development as at September 2015.

    The States include Lagos, Delta, Osun and Niger State.

    This was made known in a report made available to The Nation by the National Pension Commission (PenCom).

    According to the report, these four States are able to benefit from the pension fund because they have implemented the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).

    The report stated that pension assets totaling N160 billion was invested in State Bonds towards infrastructure development.

    It however showed that not all States have adopted the CPS.

    It read: “11 States and the FCT have commenced implementation while 11 States have enacted pension laws on CPS but are yet to commence implementation in the period under review.

    “Three States have enacted Laws, which need to be reviewed as they vary substantially from the provisions of the pension Reform Act (PRA) 2014 while 12 States are at the bill stage.

    “Aside from the four states that benefitted from the fund in the period under review, other States that have implemented the CPS are Ogun, Jigawa, Zamfara, Rivers, Kaduna, Anambra, Enugu and FCT.

    “States that have enacted pension laws but are yet to commence implementation are Ekiti, Edo, Gombe, Ondo, Nassarawa, Kebbi, Kogi, Sokoto, Oyo, and Taraba while those who have enacted laws but need to be reviewed are Adamawa, Bayelsa and Kano”, the report stated.

    Meanwhile, Chairman of Premium Pension Limited, Aliyu Dikko adviced State Governors to comply with the CPS in other to access it for infrastructure.

    He noted that it is in their own interest to comply because once they comply, a lot of opportunities are opened to them.

  • PenCom recovers N10b pension contribution

    PenCom recovers N10b pension contribution

    •Commission to audit firms

    The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has recovered over N10 billion unremitted pension contributions in principal and interest penalty, The Nation has learnt.

    It was also learnt that the Commission would soon begin pension audit of the books of over 200,000 existing employers in the country to determine those who failed to remit the mandatory 18 per cent pension contributions of workers to their Retirement Savings Account held by their respective Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs).

    Section 3 subsection (1) of the Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2014 states that there is  an established law for any employer in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to have a Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) for payment of retirement benefits of employees to whom the scheme applies under the Act.

    Section 4 subsection (1) states that the contribution for any employee shall be a minimum of 10 per cent by the employer and a minimum of eight per cent by the employee.

    Section 11 subsection (1) states that every employee shall maintain a Retirement Savings Account (RSA) in his name with any PFA of his choice.

    Subsection (3) states that the employer shall deduct at source the monthly contribution of the employee; and not later than seven working days from the day the employee is paid his salary; remit an amount comprising the employee’s contribution and the employer’s contribution to the Pension Fund Custodian specified by the PFA of the employee.

    PenCom Head, Compliance and Enforcement, Alhaji Umar in an interview with The Nation, said the commission decided to set up the pension audit system to complement its ongoing processes of ensuring compliance by employers in the country.

    The processes according to him, include engaging employers through warning letters, imposing two per cent monetary penalty on unremitted contributions, naming and shaming of erring employers and seeking litigation against them.

    Umar disclosed that the commission will engage accountants and other professionals who have worked in regulatory or banking sector to carry out pension audit on the books of organisations.

    This, he said, will be done on a frequency of three to four years.  He said: “We are still following through our process of compliance starting from engaging employers through warning letters, imposing two per cent monetary penalty on unremitted contributions, naming and shaming of erring employers and seeking litigation against them. This is the process we follow for any employer we find not to be complying with the provision of the Pension Reform Act. The Act provides for a two per cent increase penalty for late remittance.

    “Part of our processes of enforcing compliance is the appointment of recovery agents to recover unremitted pension contribution from the private sector. The agents mostly lawyers and accountants do a pension review of employer’s compliance level and where they find that they are not complying fully, they determine the outstanding in terms of principal contribution and also penalty as the act provides for. Presently, we are in the process of writing some employers letters. Some are at the level of receiving warning letters, some at the level of imposing monetary penalty while we drag some to the court.

    He added:’’From our database, we have over 200,000 employers and some are portfolio employers. Based on our pension submission framework, PFAs render returns on monthly basis and they tell us who is remitting and who is not remitting contributions. We have consolidated that and we have number of those that are not remitting.

    On the need for pension audit  he said:“Presently, we are planning on pension audit on yearly basis. Auditors will specifically carry out a pension audit on the accounts of companies in terms of pension compliance. Any employer who has not remitted for a period will be identified and will be made to pay the penalty. The numbers are huge and it will take time to go round all of them.

    He spoke about plans to  make the audit frequent saying: “We are planning of making the frequency of the audit to be between three or four years. This is because we are dealing with over 200,000 employers and to audit them every year will be to audit 200,000 companies. This will not be possible because even Nigeria does not have the capacity in terms of available accountants or professionals who have worked in regulatory or banking.

    “Despite these challenge, there is also the issue of cost because you have to pay them to do the work. So we say assuming we audit them in batches per annum on a frequency of three or four years which means that we will come back to each company around this period.

    ‘’We also receive complaint or request to investigate some companies and we invite anti-corruption agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Agency, Independent Corrupt Practices Commission and the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

  • NITEL, MTEL pensioners cry out over 10 years’ unpaid pension

    NITEL, MTEL pensioners cry out over 10 years’ unpaid pension

    Pensioners of the defunct Nigeria Telecommunication Limited (NITEL) and its mobile arm, Mobile Telecommunications (MTEL) have cried out to President Muhammadu Buhari to end their 10 years of suffering by paying their pension benefits.

    The pensioners numbering over 2000 said previous administrations have failed to pay their pension since former President, Olusegun Obasanjo sold and dissolved the organisation in 2006.

    Chairman, NITEL, MTEL pensioners, Iko Edem who made the call at a meeting held in Lagos, said previous administrations have not been fair to them. He however, expressed confidence in the administration of President Buhari.

    He said they have met with the present officials of the Federal Government and they have shown sympathy to them, adding that following their agitations, government paid them them five years pension as pay off which they rejected.

    He said: “Our appeal is to the present government and we believe that they are listening to us. They told us that they feel a lot of injustice has been done to us and that they are looking into the matter. We have representatives in Abuja that is meeting with government and they are advising us on steps to take.

    “We made approaches to the past governments to no avail, only to be paid off five years pension right. We rejected it and sued government at an Abuja High court and won. The Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) that sold NITEL went to court to appeal the judgment against us and won. We proceeded to the Supreme Court because we were not satisfied and this is the situation as at today.

    “It has not been easy for us at the Supreme Court because of the many cases at the Court. Presently, the attention of government is on political cases and that is why they have not heard our case up till now.  We filed our case in May last year and up till now they have not even heard us. But our lawyer has advised us to also go political and to do this; we have to work with the government.

    “The present officials of government have sympatised with us. Many of us for instance, served for 35 years. By the constitution of this country, once you have served in any institution, you are entitled to pension for life. It is however, unfair for any government to stop our pensions and ask us to go for life. We are the only pensioners that government asked to go away with five years pension. There are other cases. They initially stopped our pension and when we protested, they paid us five years without negotiating with anyone of us. This is unacceptable to us.”

    He stressed that pensioners who served for 35 years or retired voluntarily after 10 years are supposed to earn pension for life, adding that those who were exited from the service and have served 10 years in NITEL are also qualified for pensions.

    He noted that they are open for negotiation if they don’t want to pay them pension for life.

    We know the conditions for pay off which is that you either pay us 25 years pension salary or negotiate with us and whatever the two parties agree will be binding on us.

  • Corruption, others hinder deployment of fund

    Corruption, others hinder deployment of fund

    Corruption, policy inconsistency and lack of appropriate investible products or instruments have been the bane of full deployment of N5.1 trillion pension funds to nation building, the Managing Director, Zenith Pensions Custodian Limited, Mrs. Nkem Oni-Egboma,” he said.

    Oni-Egboma made this known during a paper presentation on “Security and Strategic Deployment of Pension Funds in Nigeria for Nation Building” at the Nigeria Pension Consumer Symposium held in Lagos.

    For Nigeria to harness the exponential growth in pension asset and channel it to achieve laudable infrastructural and structural transformation, there is need for creation of suitable investable vehicles like infrastructural bonds and equity with low risk.

    She stated that there is also need for the right policy formulation that will provide conducive ground rules for its deployment.

    According to the World Bank report, Nigeria infrastructural deficit requires investment of $15 billion  about N2 trillion per annum for a decade in critical areas such as housing, transport and power sectors.

    She pointed out that one would expect the accumulated pension fund of over N5.1 trillion to provide a sure gateway for the needed finance to fund the infrastructural deficit.

    The Zenith Pension boss said the reality, however, is that a very large proportion of the pension fund is deployed to fixed income securities and equities, and very little is channelled towards infrastructure because of corruption, policy inconsistency or summersaults and lack of appropriate investible products or instruments.

    Speaking specifically on how to channel Nigeria Pension Fund towards infrastructural development for nation building, she said there is need for capacity building, and Public-Private Partnership (PPP), among others.

    She explained that pension operators need to acquire necessary knowledge, expertise, skill and resources through the development of appropriate capacity programmes that would enable them play directly in infrastructure investment.

    She said: “A contractual arrangement between a public agency and a private sector entity. Through this agreement, the skills and assets of each sector are shared in delivering a service or facility for the use of general public. Government needs to ensure that all parties are carried along to build confidence with stakeholders.

    “Floating of infrastructure bond targeted at specific public good and infrastructure with clearly defined exit route, Private equity – targeted at infrastructural development like ARM Harith Infrastructure Fund for power project; appropriate government policy and stability that would create the enabling environment for the right financing from pension fund and collaboration with Nigeria Mortgage Re-financing Corporation.”

    Project Director, Abidemi Adesanya said the symposium was designed to create a window of opportunity for workers in Lagos to be able to rub minds and ask questions on grey areas from leaders and professionals in the pension industry.

    It was further designed to sensitise employers and workers on the importance of subscribing to the contributory pension scheme in Nigeria,” he added.

  • PenCom recovers N10b pension contribution

    PenCom recovers N10b pension contribution

    •Commission to audit firms

    The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has recovered over N10 billion unremitted pension contributions in principal and interest penalty, The Nation has learnt.

    It was also learnt that the Commission would soon begin pension audit of the books of over 200,000 existing employers in the country to determine those who failed to remit the mandatory 18 per cent pension contributions of workers to their Retirement Savings Account held by their respective Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs).

    Section 3 subsection (1) of the Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2014 states that there is  an established law for any employer in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to have a Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) for payment of retirement benefits of employees to whom the scheme applies under the Act.

    Section 4 subsection (1) states that the contribution for any employee shall be a minimum of 10 per cent by the employer and a minimum of eight per cent by the employee.

    Section 11 subsection (1) states that every employee shall maintain a Retirement Savings Account (RSA) in his name with any PFA of his choice.

    Subsection (3) states that the employer shall deduct at source the monthly contribution of the employee; and not later than seven working days from the day the employee is paid his salary; remit an amount comprising the employee’s contribution and the employer’s contribution to the Pension Fund Custodian specified by the PFA of the employee.

    PenCom Head, Compliance and Enforcement, Alhaji Umar in an interview with The Nation, said the commission decided to set up the pension audit system to complement its ongoing processes of ensuring compliance by employers in the country.

    The processes according to him, include engaging employers through warning letters, imposing two per cent monetary penalty on unremitted contributions, naming and shaming of erring employers and seeking litigation against them.

    Umar disclosed that the commission will engage accountants and other professionals who have worked in regulatory or banking sector to carry out pension audit on the books of organisations.

    This, he said, will be done on a frequency of three to four years.  He said: “We are still following through our process of compliance starting from engaging employers through warning letters, imposing two per cent monetary penalty on unremitted contributions, naming and shaming of erring employers and seeking litigation against them. This is the process we follow for any employer we find not to be complying with the provision of the Pension Reform Act. The Act provides for a two per cent increase penalty for late remittance.

    “Part of our processes of enforcing compliance is the appointment of recovery agents to recover unremitted pension contribution from the private sector. The agents mostly lawyers and accountants do a pension review of employer’s compliance level and where they find that they are not complying fully, they determine the outstanding in terms of principal contribution and also penalty as the act provides for. Presently, we are in the process of writing some employers letters. Some are at the level of receiving warning letters, some at the level of imposing monetary penalty while we drag some to the court.

    He added:’’From our database, we have over 200,000 employers and some are portfolio employers. Based on our pension submission framework, PFAs render returns on monthly basis and they tell us who is remitting and who is not remitting contributions. We have consolidated that and we have number of those that are not remitting.

    On the need for pension audit  he said:“Presently, we are planning on pension audit on yearly basis. Auditors will specifically carry out a pension audit on the accounts of companies in terms of pension compliance. Any employer who has not remitted for a period will be identified and will be made to pay the penalty. The numbers are huge and it will take time to go round all of them.

    He spoke about plans to  make the audit frequent saying: “We are planning of making the frequency of the audit to be between three or four years. This is because we are dealing with over 200,000 employers and to audit them every year will be to audit 200,000 companies. This will not be possible because even Nigeria does not have the capacity in terms of available accountants or professionals who have worked in regulatory or banking.

    “Despite these challenge, there is also the issue of cost because you have to pay them to do the work. So we say assuming we audit them in batches per annum on a frequency of three or four years which means that we will come back to each company around this period.

    ‘’We also receive complaint or request to investigate some companies and we invite anti-corruption agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Agency, Independent Corrupt Practices Commission and the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

  • Fed Govt to inaugurate Insurance Bill review committee tomorrow

    The Federal Government will tomorrow inaugurate the 10-member committee set to review the Insurance (Consolidated) Bill.

    This was made known by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM)

    The committee, is chaired by Dr. Omogbai- Omo Eboh, a renowned expert in Insurance Law, while Dr. Talmiz Usman (Head of Legal Department, NAICOM is the Secretary.

    Other members of the committee include a representative of the Ministry of Finance; a representative of the National Insurance Commission; a representative of Nigeria Insurers’ Association (NIA), and a representative of Nigeria Council of Registered Insurance Brokers.

    Members of the committee also include a representative of the Institute of Loss Adjusters of Nigeria; a representative of the Attorney General of the Federation; Kamar Raji and Dr. Ladi Hamalai of the National Institute of Legal Studies.

    The impending review will make the bill conform with the ideals of contemporary insurance practice, ensures an efficient insurance industry in the country and form the basis for a new draft bill, which will be sent to the National Assembly for consideration.It will also  make the bill conform with the ideals of contemporary insurance practice and also ensures an efficient insurance industry in the country.

    Minister of Finance Mrs Kemi Adeosu said the review committee with members drawn from the public and private sectors, was to submit its report within three months.

    The minister said the activities of the Review Committee would be fully funded by the National Insurance Commission, which is the statutory agency of the Federal Government established to regulate and supervise the Nigerian insurance sector.

    According to the minister, the terms of reference of the review committee include a critical review of the draft Insurance (Consolidated) Bill, with a view to making it a framework or principle-based legislation; a comparative review of the bill to align it with the powers of other financial regulators in the country as well as a thorough examination of current market problems and recommendation of appropriate regulatory powers to allow the insurance regulator act appropriately.

    The review committee is to undertake a review of all other insurance laws and update the draft Insurance (Consolidated) Bill to align with international best practices.

  • Lagos pays retirees N649m

    Retirees numbering 119 from the mainstream service, Local Government, SUBEB, TEPO and Parastatals of  the Lagos State Government have been issued Retirement Benefit Bond Certificates of N649 million, the Director-General, Lagos State Pension Board (LASPEB), Mrs. Folashade Onanuga, has said.

    She made this known in a statement signed by LASPEB spokesman, Mrs. Basirat Lawal and made available to reporters in Lagos. She said this brings the number of retirees paid so far to 2,409 between August 2015 and January 2016.

    According to her, the total accrued pension rights paid by the state government from August 2015 to January, 2016 is N10.652 billion.

    She explained that accrued pension rights are gratuity and pension entitlements due to staff that transited to the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) but had served under the “Pay As You Go” pension scheme dispensation.

    According to her, the bonds were issued at the 23rd Retirement Benefit Bond Certificate Presentation Ceremony held last week in Lagos. Onanuga urged the beneficiaries to take care of their health and invest the money wisely.

    She also advised the beneficiaries to be wary of fraudsters and not accept any business proposal they don’t understand. She admonished them to keep the money in a fixed deposit account with banks if they cannot think of any business at the moment.

  • Stanbic IBTC Pension records over N1tr assets

    Stanbic IBTC Pension Managers Limited, a Pension Fund Administrator (PFA) has recorded an excess of N1trillion pension fund assets in 10 years, Chief Executive of the Company, Eric Fajemisin has said.

    Fajemisin who made this known in a statement in Lagos, said the company has emerged Nigeria’s leading PFA with over one million retirement savings account holders under management.

    He said the company is paying more than N2.1 billion to over 38,000 retirees monthly, adding that over N204 billion has been paid to retirees since they began operations in 2005.

    He noted that their aim is to continue to set higher standards of service delivery and ensure that “our retirement savings account holders derive maximum value from their contributions,” Fajemisin said.

    He further disclosed that in line with its commitment to enriching customer experience, the company would continue to broaden and enhance its service channels for efficient service delivery. He said: “This is in fulfillment of its promise to provide quality and stress-free pension fund administration and financial management services to our clients and Nigerians wherever they may be. The cardinal value propositions of the PFA are participation, accessibility, quality, convenience and efficiency.

    “The company can be reached via a number of service channels, including its over 217 branch offices spread across the country, its 24-hour multilingual contact centre, SMS, Stanbic IBTC ATMs, email, its mobile office, mobile app, and the Pension Guru online, Fajemisin said, adding that the PFA is committed to ensuring that clients are able to experience excellent and convenient service in any of its touch points.

    “Our promise is to avail as many Nigerians as possible the opportunity to have quality pension fund administration and financial services, which will enable a life of comfort in retirement. To achieve this, we have continued to broaden our service channels so that we can reach as many Nigerians as possible and encourage participation in the Contributory Pension Scheme.”

    He said that Stanbic IBTC Pension Managers will constantly explore additional avenues where Nigerians can conveniently access its services to meet their pension and retirement needs, adding that the company is backed by the necessary experience, strong and sound financial clout of the Standard Bank Group, to ensure efficiency in the management and safety of clients’ investments.

    Stanbic IBTC Pension Managers is a subsidiary of Stanbic IBTC Holdings, a member of Standard Bank Group, a full service financial services group with a focus on three main business pillars – Corporate and Investment Banking, Personal and Business Banking and Wealth Management. Standard Bank Group is the largest African bank by assets and earnings and is rooted in Africa with strategic representation in 20 countries of the continent, including South Africa. Standard Bank has been in operation for over 153 years and is focused on building first-class, on-the-ground financial services organisations in chosen countries in Africa and connecting other selected emerging markets to Africa and to each other, applying sector expertise, particularly in natural resources, globally.