PenCom raises bar on customer’s satisfaction

PenCom raises bar on customer’s satisfaction

Chuks Udo Okonta

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) is to undertake customer  satisfaction survey to ascertain  whether contributors are getting optimal services from their Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs), its  Director General National Pension Commission (PenCom) Mohammad Ahmad has said.

He told Inspen that the move is part of the commission’s effort to ensure contributors are properly served.

He noted that as part of the commission’s supervisory mandate, it had cause to impose sanctions on operators for failure to render returns promptly and inability to send Retirement Savings Account (RSA) statements to contributors

He said: “As part of its supervisory mandate, the Commission had cause to impose sanctions on operators in respect of a number of issues. The issues include failure to render returns promptly and inability to send RSA statements to contributors. 

“In serious cases of weak corporate governance, the Commission had intervened to remove directors and takeover the management of the affected operators in order to safeguard the pension assets.

“The issue of service delivery is taken seriously in the pension industry. To that the Commission intends undertake customer satisfaction survey and develop regular satisfaction index.”

He said the payment of benefits to retirees in the private sector had been regular and timely and that recently the payment of retirement benefits to retirees as well as death claims to beneficiaries of deceased federal government employees has been challenging due to funding problems of the government.

Ahmad said the administration of pension has no doubt been enhanced with the passage of the PRA 2004, stressing that not only has the Act provided a platform for a more effective, efficient and transparent administration of pensions in the federal public service and the private sector, but also generated a pool of long term fund for investment that already had positive impact on the growth of the Nigerian economy.