PenCom transfers N7bn NSITF fund to workers’ accounts

By Nike Popoola

The National Pension Commission has transferred a total of N7bn pension contributions of workers under the defunct Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund to the Retirement Savings Accounts of the contributors in line with the requirements of the Contributory Pension Scheme.

According to figures made available to our correspondent on Thursday, the N7bn has been transferred into 92,655 RSAs.

PenCom said it recently received 3,752 applications from Trustfund for the transfer of N242.44m to the respective RSAs of the contributors.

The commission said it had earlier reviewed and approved the transfer of N241.62m to the RSAs of 3,743 applicants.

"This brought the total amount and contributors for whom NSITF contributions were remitted to their RSAs to N7bn and 92,655, respectively," it noted

PenCom said the remaining applications were rejected due to incomplete documentation, zero balance or duplicated applications.

It said that in order to fast-track the transfer of the NSITF contributions into the RSAs of the contributors, PenCom, in conjunction with Trustfund, initiated the matching of the RSAs records with that in the NSITF database.

The commission said in furtherance of the matching of the records, the guidelines on the transfer of NSITF contributions were further amended to accommodate this new activity.

Under the old pension scheme, the National Provident Fund was established by an Act of Parliament in 1961 to regulate private sector pension schemes in the country. It ensured monthly contributions from the basic salaries of workers and their employers’ contributions.

The NPF was later converted to a limited social insurance scheme and administered by the NSITF from 1993.

However, through the Pension Act of 1979 and the activities of the NSITF, pensioners were subjected to difficulties as a result of the non-payment of their pensions.

This scheme was not funded, which led to mounting pension liabilities, and made it to become unsustainable.

The development led to the repeal of the 1979 Act and subsequent amendment of the NSITF Act of 1993.

The Pension Reform Act 2004 was promulgated and it established a contributory scheme for the payment of retirement benefits of employees in the public service of the federation, the Federal Capital Territory and the private sector.

The President, Pension Fund Operators of Nigeria, Mr. Dave Uduanu, said that the CPS had been recording some achievements.

He said that the PRA 2004 was also being reviewed.

According to him, the PFAs are jointly working to ensure that they improve the pension industry for the benefit of the pensioners.

He said the operators were looking at having a shared services platform for the industry in order to reduce areas of duplication.