Today, pension assets are currently in excess of N18 trillion and are not existing in isolation.
Ibrahim Garba Buwai, Head Corporate Communications Department of PenCom who made the disclosure in Abuja said the commission is happy that the information is in the public domain unlike in the past where people were helping themselves with pension money; that he said is no longer obtainable.
“The news is that every kobo is that N18 trillion actually belong to an RSA holder, a worker or a retiree. These funds are been consistently invested and the returns are automatically distributed back to the RSA holder except for the little allowable charges for the management and distribution of the pension funds. I want us to follow it in that it belongs to pension contributors and retirees. As at today, we have 10.1 million contributors. What I am saying is that the N18.3 trillion belongs to the 10.1 contributors. And that there is no free money for anybody out of these assets”.
Buwai who was speaking at the Annual General Meeting AGM of the Abuja Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria FICAN commended the association for the positive reportage of the activities of PenCom and pension industry and assured of the consistent support of the management to the media. He described the media as a good partner in spreading the pensions message to reduce information gaps that the public has about the contributory Pension Scheme.
“From the inception of this recovery agents programme in 2012 to 31st December, 2023, the principal contributions that were recovered were about N12.9 billion while the penalty was about N12.5 billion. So, you can see that it’s almost 50-50. All this is what has been recovered from employers and paid into RSAs. The good thing is that all this penalty and principal goes into the individual RSA individual account. Nobody takes a penny, not PFAs, not PenCom, nobody. All these money recovered were for RSA holders and it goes into RSA. What you can help us by way of employers is that it is not in their interests not to remit because it is cheaper to remit than not to remit”, he said.
On the issue of uncredited contributions, Buwai buttressed that the issues include employers not remitting and some employers who actually remitted but with no company schedule that shows the employers that these monies belong to and as such, PFAs cannot apportion to RSA holders. This he said necessitated the putting out of a statement by the commission on its website in 2023 to this effect, where a long list of uncredited remittances was made public for the people concerned to come forward and make sure the remittances are done.
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