Thursday 14 May 2015

Report your boss to PenCom, PenOp over pension remittance

Chuks Udo Okonta

Do you know that you have the power to report your employer to the National Pension Commission and Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp) over non-remittance of your pension contributions?

The Pension Act has empowered workers as whistle-blower, giving them the right to report employers who joke with their future by failing to remit their contributions.

An investment expert, Moses Igbrude, urged workers to take their future at their hands by ensuring they take opportunity of the window created by PenCom to report phony employers who do not mean well for them.

He enjoined workers to engage on regularly verification of the remittances made by their employers, stressing that the Pension Act has left pension in the hands of employers and employees, hence the need for employees to fight for the rights.

The Compliance Officer, Stanbic IBTC Pension, Idu Okwuosa, who is not happy with the low level of adoption by employers of labour and pranks played by some employers, urged employers to embrace the scheme to ensure secure future for their employees. 

Idu also attributed the low level of adoption to failure of employees to demand their pension rights.

"If your employers are not paying your pension, the employees being the whistle-blower, must notify the PenCom. Some are even deducting it from workers' salary without remitting, which is fraudulent," she said.

She appealed to Retirement Savings Account (RSA) holders to lodge complaint to either PenCom or PenOp, if unfairly treated. She equally charged employers to cooperate more with pension operators to ensure that, not only are they registering their employees under the new pension scheme, but that pension allowance deducted from workers salaries are remitted to the concerned PFAs as at when due.

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