By Ebere Nwoji
The National Assembly has been advised to set up a taskforce that will engage with state governments with a view to ensuring compliance with the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) in all states.
The lawmakers also in a recent retreat with pension fund operators resolved to review upwards the lump sum amount paid to workers at retirement.
These formed part of resolutions taken at the recent third annual retreat organised by the Pension Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp) for National Assembly (NASS), that held in Lagos.
In a communique issued at the end of the retreat, it was agreed that a taskforce should be set up by National Assembly to engage the state governments and come up with innovative ways to drive compliance.
They also resolved that a satisfaction survey should be commissioned by PenOp, but handled by a third party to gauge the level of satisfaction with the scheme.
The pension stakeholders also resolved that pension operators should take the issue of documentation seriously in order to ensure that pensioners are not made to go through unnecessary stress in order to access their benefits.
It was also agreed that considering the role legislation plays in driving national development, the National Assembly and PenOp should continue to collaborate in order to create legislations that will facilitate acceleration of pension assets growth and improved access to contributors.
At this year’s retreat which had the theme: ‘17 Years of Pension Reform: Challenges, Gains and Opportunities,” participants reviewed the performance of the sector 17 years after the pension reform in Nigeria, noting that though there have been a remarkable growth and achievements in the industry with pension assets growing to N12.4 trillion, more work needed to be done.
They listed some of the challenges to include low coverage and compliance, inadequacy of benefits and poor awareness, among others.
Speaking at the retreat, PenOp President,Mr Wale Odutola, who is also the Managing Director ARM Pension Managers, said though the pension industry has raised the bar for professionals locally as investment, risk and compliance professionals within the industry can favourably compare to their counterparts anywhere in the world, there are many areas where the sector files much behind its counterparts in other countries.
