By Favour Nnabugwu
The National Pension Commission of Nigeria, PENCOM assured the Senate that federal pensioners will get their pension a week after retirement
Speaking during her submission to Senator Olamilekan Adeola, APC, Lagos West led Senate Committee on Finance currently interfacing with government agencies on proposals for the 2023 – 2025 Medium Term Expenditure Frame Work ( MTEF ) and Fiscal Strategy Paper ( FSP), Director- General of PENCOM, Aisha Dahiru-Umar told the Senate that the N14.5trillion pension fund is not idle due to right investments made of them.
According to her, “The backlog of accrued rights component of pension payments to Pensioners causing delay in payment over the years , is almost cleared by the Federal Government, adding that within the last seventeen years , the federal government has been paying N49 billion per month to offset the accrued rights backlog of pensioners.
“We recognise the importance of this agency to all Nigerians especially our retired civil servants who have served this country meritoriously and as the custodian of their contributory pension scheme (CPS)”.
Aisha Dahiru Umar said, “Late payment of pension to pensioners will be a thing of the past very soon as required steps in that direction , have been taken by the federal government whose retirees are affected.”
The PENCOM boss who advised pensioners to carry out required documentation a year to their retirement in fast tracking the whole process, however told the committee that the N14.5trillion available pension fund is not idle as N9 .5trillion out of it , is invested in Federal government security , N1.23trillion in Equity shares while 35% of the fund is invested in money market .
At the end of the day, the Committee said that the yearly repeated N102million overhead subvention given the agency by the federal government will be removed aside the N26 billion yearly inserted into the Commission budget without cash backing.
