Ebere Nwoji
Stanbic IBTC Pension Managers Limited, said it has paid over N279 billion to retirees since its inception in 2006. It also urged employers of labour to be committed to playing their role in Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) through regular remittances of employees’ funds.
The leading Pension Fund Administrator made the statement during its half year operational review and employers’ forum it organised in Lagos recently.
During the review, IBTC Pensions Chief Executive officer, Mr. Eric Fajemisin said between January and June this year, the company paid a total of N16.6 billion to over 1.5million Retirement Savings Account (RSA) holders under its custody.
“Five thousand new retirees also received their benefits from the PFA, increasing the number of individual retirement savings account (RSA) holders nationwide with it to over 1,500,000. A total of N16.6 billion was paid to retirees from January to June this year”, Fajemisin said.
He said the half year review enables the company retool itself for higher performance in the years ahead.
According to him, aside the half yearly review, the company has continued its national awareness and engagement campaigns across the country, adding that the 2017 employers’ forum was organised in six key cities namely Benin, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Enugu, Lagos and Abuja.
Fajemisin, stated that the IBTC Pension Managers has more than N1.7 trillion in assets under management, a feat that reinforces a strong evidence of its proficiency at ensuring safety and return of value on investment to RSA holders through higher standards of service delivery.
“The performance also demonstrates the potential of the pension industry to pool the requisite funding to support Nigeria’s economic development”, he said.
At the Lagos Employers’ forum organised by the company recently, Head Business Development of the company, Nike Fajemo, emphasised the need for all hands to be on the deck to ensure the success of the contributory Pension Scheme.
She said the employers, the employees, the Pension Fund Managers and the National Pension Commission have got their various roles to play to ensure the success of the scheme.
She sad IBTC Pensions has taken the responsibility of organising the employers’ forum to motivate non complying employers wake up and play their part to ensure efficient service delivery to the contributors.
According to her, one of the greatest challenges of the scheme is non-compliance to the law by some employers observing that these category of employers oftentimes deduct their employees’ money without remitting same to their RSA, adding that this is against the stipulations of the law which is that employers should ensure remittance of employees’ fund latest seven days after payment of salary.
