Ebere Nwoji
The federal government has said it will through its budgetary provisions for 2019, clear backlog of outstanding accrued pension rights of its workers as well as the outstanding three per cent additional contributions to the retirement Savings Account(RSA) of its workforce as stated by the 2014 Pension Reform Act.
The National Pension Commission(PenCom), disclosed this at the 2019 pre-retirement workshop for prospective retirees in the Contributory Pension Scheme it organised in Lagos recently.
The Acting Director General of PenCom, Mrs Aisha Dahir-Umar, represented by officials from various departments in the commission who delivered lectures at the workshop, lamented that non -payment of accrued rights of workers for some years had retrogressed the quick and timely payment of retirees’ benefits by the various Pension Fund Administrators.
The PenCom boss, however, assured the retiring workers that respite has come their way in this regard, saying the federal government in the 2019 budget, retained all its budgetary presentations for retirees.
At the meeting, Mrs Bukky Arekoya, one of the resource persons from PenCom, while speaking on behalf of the DG, said the commission this year got government nod on the budget on pension which it presented to government.
According to her, this included the outstanding accrued rights of all retired and retiring government workers which recent reports put at over N100billion.
Both PenCom and PFAs believe that release of the accrued rights of workers would enhance payment of benefits to workers.
Statistics from government shows that the last money released by the federal government for payment of workers’ accrued rights was in April 2017, when it released N54 billion to this effect.
She also the federal government would also release fund to take care of the additional three per cent contributions of government to workers’ retirement savings account as stipulated by the Pension Reform Act 2014.
According to her, since the review of 2004 Pension Reform Act in which government’s contributions to workers’ RSA was upgraded from 15 per cent to 18 per cent, the federal government has not commenced its implementation as it still limited its contributions to employees’ RSA to 15 percent.
She, however, said provision has been made for implementation of the 18 per cent contributions from 2014 to date in the 2019 budget.
The one-day pre-retirement workshop was organised for staff of Ministries, Departments and Agencies(MDAs) who are due to retire between January and December 2020.
