The Nation Newspaper

Tag: pension

  • Agency screens teachers for pension

    The Lagos State Teachers’ Establishment Pension Office (TEPO) has undertaken its yearly pension verification for retirees from the state teaching service.

    The one-week exercise, which started last Wednesday, only screened pensioners who retired under the old pension scheme so as to get accurate figure of existing pensioners to avert fraud.

    The exercise, which took place at TEPO in Old Secretariat, Ikeja, also held in all six education districts in the state.

    The biometric exercise also helped to update the pensions record to know how many retirees are on the pay roll of the State Government as well as give opportunity to those who missed the previous verification and their names were removed from the payroll to get them reinstated.

    TEPO Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Sewanu Amosu, explained that payment of the six per cent and 15 per cent increment on pensions by the state government commenced last year.

    She called on retirees yet to be paid to write to TEPO with all relevant documents so that their increment could be processed.

  • Excitement as Rivers govt pays seven months’ pension arrears 

    Excitement as Rivers govt pays seven months’ pension arrears 

    There was excitement in Rivers State at the weekend as the government cleared over seven months’ pension arrears it owed retired workers.

    The pensioners said the development was rare, adding that they could foot their health and other bills.

    The senior citizens regretted the failure of the government to pay their pensions as at when due.

    They wrote Governor Nyesom Wike, who ordered A biometric verification of the pensioners.

    Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP) State Chairman Edward Abibo said the governor saved the pensioners from avoidable deaths.

    Abibo, who thanked Wike for fulfilling his promise, added that the governor paid the arrears from April to October.

    The NUP chief urged pensioners to praise the governor for his action.

    He said the beneficiaries would support Wike’s administration with prayers.

    Abibo said: “The executives and members of the NUP in Rivers State most heartily thank Governor Wike for his sincerity of purpose and being a man of his word, especially for paying the backlog of the pension arrears from April to October.

    “Rivers State pensioners are, therefore, elated that their tears were wiped off as they can now meet up with their medical bills associated with old age and meet up with family needs as well as educational responsibilities for their children.”

  • Minister warns against confusing pension harmonisation with increase

    Minister of Defence Brig.-Gen. Mansur Dan-Ali (rtd) has warned military pensioners against confusing the approved pension harmonisation policy to mean increment in payment.

    Dan-Ali explained that the policy was simply an effort to bridge the gap between certain ranks among military pensioners.

    The minister, who spoke yesterday in Abuja at the military pensioners’ stakeholders’ interactive session, added that the pension review committee has submitted a report on the new pension review which was under consideration.

    Dan-Ali, who was represented at the occasion by the Director (Army), Ministry of Defence, Mrs. Otuwa Iro, stressed that the welfare of military retirees was of utmost concern to the government.

    His words: “In recent times, we have witnessed a lot of agitation and complaints by military retirees over issues regarding their pensions, especially on harmonisation. It is pertinent to state that the recent approval of the harmonisation of pensions by the Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) should not be misunderstood for increment of pensions. It is simply an effort to relatively bridge the gap in pensions between certain ranks among pensioners.

    “The welfare of military retirees is of utmost concern to this government. Efforts have been made in the past to ameliorate the sufferings of our esteemed retirees. One of such was the exemption of the Armed forces from the Contributory Pension Scheme.

    “By the provision of the 1999 Constitution, pension is due for review every five years. With the last review done in 2010, pension was due for another review in 2015. To this end, the pension review committee at the Defence Headquarters has since submitted its report, which is under consideration.”

    Chairman, Military Pensions Board, Air Vice Marshal Mohammed Dabo, in an interview with reporters, stated that the country’s over 90,000 military pensioners are not owed money.

    He stated: “We presently have over 90,000 pensioners and as of now, no pensioner is being owed of their monthly payments. The only problem is that we have pensioners that as at the time they retired, the pensionable years was 15 years, which was reviewed to 10 years. But when the review was made, it was not in retrospect, which is a challenge.

    “The harmonised pension captures officers who were privates to sergeants and then Major Generals and above. In 2010, the Federal Government then reviewed the salaries and allowances of all Federal Government workers, which also affected the pensioners, with the review. Those that retired after July 2010 receive pension more enhanced because they are operating under a new salary structure compared to people who retired earlier, who operated under the old salary structure and the gap was too wide.

    “There was a need to harmonise the structure, we made a case and Mr. President approved it.”

     

  • Union seeks N25,000 minimum pension

    The Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) has demanded for N25,000 as new minimum pension.

    The union said it is sad that many pensioners were still paid less than N5,000 monthly, even with the high rate of inflation and recession.

    Its President, Comrade Abel Afolayan, while addressing the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the union in Abuja, said many state pensioners were being owed over 12 months arrears of pension.

    He, however, praised the governors of Lagos, Jigawa, Anambra, Enugu and Yobe states for not owing  pensioners. He urged defaulting governors and states to make amend.

    “We want you to make amend so that old men will not be forced to pronounce curses on you with their grey hair,” he said.

    While the NUP is demanding N25,000 as the new national minimum pension per month, the union also canvassed immediate payment of the 18 months arrears of the 33 per cent pension to civil pensioners and 39 months areas owed police pensioners.

    On their new demand, Afolayan declared that it was criminal for a pensioner to collect less than N5,000 monthly in this time of serious economic recession.

    He said the union entered into a long negotiation with the Federal Government for the upward review of pension, which finally yielded result when former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) directed the salaries, incomes and wages commission to issue a circular for 33 per cent pension increase effective from July 1, 2010.

    “Since then, civilian pensioners throughout the country were paid 24 months, out of the 42 months arrears, remaining a balance of 18 months  of which we have a very good assurance that government will pay the balance soonest,’’ he said.

    The NUP chief added that the union is still struggling to ensure that police, NIPOST, electricity, railways, universities pensioners and others who are yet to get full benefit from the government are paid fully. He assured pensioners across the country that the union would not rest until all of them who are owed get their pensions.

    In a related event, NUP, Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Port Harcourt branch, has linked the present economic challenges facing the nation to institutionalised corruption in the country.

    Chairperson of the Union, Mr. Vincent Nweke, who disclosed this to newsmen in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, noted that every sector of the economy has been infested with corruption to the point that it has become a way of life to make money without working for it.

    According to him, every policy of government to develop the economy will be frustrated because of greed, while monies earmarked will be diverted to private pockets and programmes left without execution.

    Nweke applauded the steps taken by the Federal Government to sack as well as demote some directors and general managers of the authority whose cases were fraudulent.

    He said some of the directors and managers were recruited into the organisation after their National Youth Service (NYSC) and were placed on management posts without prerequisite experience and qualification.

    Nweke said even when the workers’ union then raised alarm over such issue; everything was swept under the carpet because of corruption, which also happens in other sectors.

    “Tell me, how can Nigeria move forward when money budgeted for development is not used for the purpose for which it was meant,” he queried.

    He, therefore, called on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to be very thorough and fight corruption holistically.

  • Review this pension law please!

    SIR: Some unemployed Nigerian youths like me who lost their jobs some years ago need to have access to their full pensions since the economy is in recession. This would enable us revive and resuscitate our private business in the midst of this recession. After working about three years in an organization, I have about one million naira (N1m) in my pension account yet I cannot have significant access to it until I am 50. I was disengaged about seven years ago at the age of 30 before our office was liquidated. Now am 37 years old, my private business is in comatose and need revival.  Where do I source significant funds to do such? My pregnant wife and two kids have relocated to the village this term. Today, I have eaten my last meal not knowing when 25 per cent of the pension would be released to me or where my next meal would come from. Yet the capitalists in the pension industry are trading with my money, enjoying its dividends, sending their children to the best schools while I starve, and my pregnant wife with 2 kids are now in the village.

    With no money/job for even my healthcare, how sure am I to live up to 50 years? The Nigeria pension law seems archaic and outdated for the present day Nigerian youths. I appeal to President Buhari for an urgent repeal of Nigeria Pension Law so Nigerian youths would have 100 per cent access to their pension upon disengagement. The reason we voted for President Buhari is ‘CHANGE’.

    The current pension law allows next of kin to withdraw the fund upon death whereas a beneficiary like me without a job/means of livelihood/healthcare/starvation/comatose business is as good as ‘dead’.  I am a son of a late palm-fruit cutter and was neither born into a royal/wealthy family nor with a silver spoon.

     

    • Onuoha Samuel,

    onuohasamuel@gmail.com.

  • Taking pension to Nigerian youths

    SIR: Capturing the informal sector of the economy has been a major concern for administrators of pension in Nigeria as noted by former Director-General of National Pension Commission (Pencom) Mallam Mohammed Ahmad. He reportedly said that “there is the problem of the informal sector (not being captured in the scheme) which constitutes a major part of the Nigerian economy, where about 47 per cent of the working populations are engaged in agriculture, petty trading, domestic, artisan and other related fields”.

    This is a source of concern, no doubt, but what is being done to address the issue? Well, the Pension Reform Act of 2014 has expanded the coverage of the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) in the private sector organizations with three employees and above. This in addition to the introduction of micro-Pension by PENCOM will go a long way in tackling the issue but a lot of Nigerians, particularly youths who make up the bulk of the informal sector, are still ignorant of these pension programmes. This situation creates an urgent need to embark on a campaign to educate youths. This can be done through the following ways:

    Inclusion of pension studies to form part of school curriculum at the tertiary education level: there needs to be an immediate introduction of pension studies to students at undergraduate levels of education so as to arm them with requisite knowledge on pension before taking up any employment or setting up a business of their own.

    Mass campaigns through the use of engaging resources: it is no longer news that the social media has become a fundamental part of the average Nigerian youth. Making use of social media platforms such as facebook, twitter, nairaland, instagram, and whatsapp takes as much as 18 hours from the average youth every day. Taking advantage of these platforms to talk about pension will go a long way in serving the purpose of this campaign.

    Many youth organizations that operate in Nigeria can also be used as a platform to educate youths on the benefit of pensions, examples of these organizations include the National Youth Council (NYC), National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) Catholic Youth Organization of Nigeria (CYON) and the likes.

    The need for the growth of the Contributory Pension Scheme CPS) in Nigeria cannot be overemphasized but to achieve this growth, we must ensure the participation of all sectors of the economy most notably the informal sector, for this to be attainable we must educate the youths, who make up the larger number of this sector, on pension and its benefit to everyone.

     

    • Inyang John Aniekpeno,

    Nasarawa State.

  • PTAD chief: pension entitlements’ll be paid

    PTAD chief: pension entitlements’ll be paid

    The new Executive Secretary, Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), Barr  Sharon Ikeazor has assured all pensioners under the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS) that all their outstanding pension benefits and other entitlements would be paid.

    In her acceptance speech during the hand over ceremony at PTAD’s Headquarters in Abuja yesterday, she said the Directorate will work to ensure that pensioners are never subjected to   uncertainties, painful delays, and unnecessary hurdles that have been the history of  DBS pension’s payment.

    The PTAD chief said she felt humbled to be entrusted by President Mohamrnadu Buhari with the important task of making positive difference in the lives of millions of Nigerians who have served their father land with dedication over the decades.

    She said the responsibilities of PTAD are clearly defined, noting that it is tasked primarily with ensuring  timely payment of benefits and other entitlements as at when due to pensioners under the DBS.

    She however said budgetary provisions for pensions has always been one of the most vulnerable items in budget implementation.

     

  • How to slice your pension to cover bills and grow your pot

    Retirement does not have to be a stark choice between buying an annuity or retaining your investments and taking an income from them.

    More people than ever are blending the two options to provide a basic level of guaranteed income while actively managing the rest of their portfolios.

    The key to deciding how to use your retirement savings to best effect is sitting down and ranking how much you value things such as flexibility of income, steady monthly payments, or knowing that you can pass on your savings to the next generation in the best possible way.

    There are two basic ways to access the money in your pension pot: buying an annuity – a guaranteed income for life – or buying a programme withdrawal- entering a contract that keeps funds invested while allowing regular or ad hoc payments.

    A good way to begin designing your retirement portfolio is thinking in terms of two buckets, one for certainty of income and one for discretionary spending.

  • Making pension work

    Making pension work

    •The times are hard, no doubt; but then, there must be a way out of the doldrums

    After escaping from the old, punishing pension regime and its cycles of unending verifications, the Nigerian worker may be forgiven for imagining that his nightmare under the new contributory pension scheme was finally over.

    Nearly 12 years on, it would appear that the new, despite its acclaimed benefits, is proving to be more of the same with the old. Whereas for the old pension scheme, its albatross was the irresponsible employers (mostly federal and state governments) which failed to provide adequate funds to cater for the needs of the retirees, and the officials who stole the rest of what was available; that of the new, which came per force of the landmark Pension Reforms Act 2004, is a variant of the same pathology –an across the board failure by employers to ensure timely remittance of deductions made from workers’ wages to the Pension Funds Administrators (PFAs).

    That albatross may yet sound its death knell.

    Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President Aliyu Wabba put the emerging pension crisis in perspective when at the 14th NLC Rain School held in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, he alleged that many employers of labour, including the government, had not remitted their contributions to the PFAs since October, 2015. Said he: “a good number of the state governments were only interested in the implementation of the scheme to raise money…” He went on: “In many states, they have also tried to implement the pension scheme. In most cases, they do that under the guise of trying to get more money. They are not supposed to be the custodians. When you deduct money, you remit it to the custodians. But in many states, they have not even implemented the law, they are going ahead to implement the deduction. So, for what purpose is that?”

    As it is, the nation appears to have gone full cycle. Before the operation of the new scheme, employers – without employees’ counterpart contribution – merely offered workers guarantees that they would have something to hold on to at the point of exit – a provision that would prove its undoing as governments at all levels, lacking the discipline and will, and showing nary interest in funding the pension obligations kept postponing the evil day. With paucity of funds becoming the rule and with quantum leap in the number of retirees as a result of which pension obligations ballooned, the old scheme would become, inevitably, unsustainable. This was the background to the Pension Reforms Act 2004 introduced by the Obasanjo administration which made contributions by employees and employers mandatory, and which required the remittance of deductions to an independent PFA.

    That this vital provision designed to guarantee its sustainability is now being observed more in the breach can only spell disaster for the scheme.

    We are certainly not unaware of the challenges faced by employers – public and private– at this time. Today, most states struggle to meet their recurrent bills with a sizeable number known to be in arrears of wages by several months. The story is not dissimilar in the private sector with dire prospects in the increasingly harsh macro-economic environment. It would therefore seem understandable that meeting pension obligations would come with serious strains, particularly at this time.

    The truth however is that in some instances, the problem of pension management predates the current crisis. If anything, it reflects fundamentally the attitude of some employers to their pension obligations, the idea that pensions, a future obligation, can wait.

    It is the bounden duty of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) to get employers to obey the pension law.  Surely, there must be something that PenCom can do about the issue.  As for those states yet to sign on to the new pension scheme, we urge the NLC to bring pressure to bear on them to do so without further delay.

  • ‘Late remittance of pension leads to loss of income’

    ‘Late remittance of pension leads to loss of income’

    Workers whose employers remit their pension contributions late stand the risk of losing their investment, the Regional Manager, Trustfund Pensions, Obafemi Arobadi, has  said.

    Arobadi, who spoke at the firm’s yearly employers/interactive session on regulatory compliance, said due to the late payment of their contributions to the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs), most contributors might lose gains accruing to them.

    He said employers were expected to remit the monthly  contributions within seven days of paying their workers’salary.

    “When you don’t pay as at when due, your employee loses investment income. Seven days, that’s what the law says. We are organising this yearly event to update the employers as well as employees on the recent issues in the industry,” he said.

    About 50 per cent of the employers, he said, could be considered as complying with the seven days’ grace, pointing out that the most challenging in pension administration has been the non-remittance of workers’ contributors by the employers.

    He said most times, PFAs are reluctant to enforce the law because they do not want to endanger the workers’ interest, as such a measure could result in default companies being sealed up.

    He said: “Before exploring the law, we normally try to know the reason for non remittance. In the past, we’ve seen some, who were not complying and after our investigation, they paid all the outstanding. Should the premises be sealed, it will affect the workers.

    “Corporate governance issue has been our major challenge. For some employers,  it’s non-challance, why some employers see it as a burden, hence they fail to comply.”

    Arobadi said the non-payment of salaries in major states had made remittance in those states difficult, adding that the states normally remit when the backlog of salary areas were eventually paid. He said employers should ensure that the employees’pins were quoted correctly on the remittance schedule, as it would help in prompt update of members accounts.

    The Interactive session, which had Trustfund Pension Plc as the Pension Fund Administrator (PFA) and Zenith Pension Custodian as the Pension Fund Custodian (PFC), also highlighted some problems hindering access to the funds by the contributors after retirement.

    Speaking on behalf of the Custodian, Daniel Onatoye said the new scheme, backed by the Pension Reform Act, 2014, had been a success story. According to him, it is unlike the old scheme, which had no fund set aside to pay workers after retirement.

    He, however, cautioned against companies outside the scheme,  lodging their workers’contribution in the bank, as most of them would not be able to give appropriate information, should there be any error at the time of payment.