FG fails to remit six months pension – PenCom
The Federal Government was yet to pay only six months of pending accrued rights of retirees, under the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS), the National Pension Commission (PenCom) has said.
This was revealed by the Director-General of PenCom, Aisha Dahir-Umar, in Abuja on Thursday at the interactive session on 2022-2025 MTEF and FSP, organised by the Senate Committee on Finance.
Mrs Umar was responding to the questions from Senators on alleged delayed payment of pension benefits to retirees, possibility of investing pension funds for benefit of the economy, and alleged malpractice by Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs).
She said delayed payment of accrued rights would soon be a thing of the past as the government was making frantic efforts to clear the backlog of accrued rights.
The government had in the last 17 years, she said, had consistently paid accrued rights, saying that it only owed six months of accrued rights.
She said that the government was paying N49 billion monthly accrued rights in the last 17 years, adding that the Federal Government via Debt Management Office (DMO), was on the verge of paying off the balance of accrued rights.
The PenCom boss said the issue of accrued rights will soon be a thing of the past.
On investing the N14 trillion pension fund, she said PenCom was glad to invest the funds on attractive and viable instruments with the full involvement of government and the Federal Ministry of Finance because a lot of guarantees were required.
She said PenCom had invested 63 per cent of the pension fund, adding that N9.5 trillion was invested on Federal Government securities, N1.2 trillion on equity, while 35 per cent was invested in the money market.
She said the funds were not idle, but earning more funds for the contributors.
Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Solomon Adeola, said the Senate was interested in the activities of PenCom.
