The National Pension Commission, PenCom, has disclosed that the Nigeria’s pension contributions have risen to N8 trillion up from the N7.779 trillion savings recorded in March this year.
The Head of Research and Corporate Strategy Department at the commission Dr. Farouk Aminu, gave this hint during his contributions in a television programme.
Farouk explained that out of the savings, over N50 billion had been invested in Federal Government Sukuk securities deployed to road infrastructure projects.
The commission’s Acting Director-General, Mrs. Aisha Dahir-Umar, hinted that between January and February this year, the pension contributions increased by N270 billion, up from N7.52 trillion to N7.779 trillion.
According to her, 390,000 workers from the public and private sectors of the economy have enrolled in the new Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).
Dahir-Umar explained that the commission was intensifying efforts at ensuring that the provision of necessary infrastructure for the launching of the Micro Pension Scheme in line with its strategic objective of expanding coverage of the CPS to the underserved sector was in place.
This is even as she disclosed that the commission had also initiated the Pension Enhancement Programme to improve the monthly pension of retirees in the Contributory Pension Scheme.
The Pencom boss pointed out that following the commission’s discovery that the returns being generated by the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) on the balances of the Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) of majority of retirees could be used to enhance their monthly pensions, it sought for and secured the approval of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation to implement the pension enhancement programme.
She confirmed the initiative had increased monthly pensions for most retirees receiving pension under the Programmed Withdrawal arrangement, while the PFAs have commenced the enhancement of pensions of all retirees under Programmed Withdrawal since December 2017.
