Uche Usim, Abuja
Latest operational report from the National Pension Commission (PenCom) has revealed that Nigeria’s Pension Assets under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) now stands at N8.45 trillion.
Details of the fund show that it gained N90 billion within a month as the balance rose from N8.34 trillion at the end of September 2018 to N8.45 trillion at the end of October 2018.
The report also shows that 8.41 million workers pooled from the public and private sectors have been absorbed into the new pension scheme.
The report noted that the fund growth was particularly remarkable as it defied state governments’ N200 billion debt pension arrears billion and the Federal government’s default in the payment of pension entitlement of its workers.
Closer scrutiny of the pension assets indicates that the private sector was the main driver of the growth as more firms regularly joined the scheme.
The pension fund operators have, however, invested over N6.05 trillion, translating to 71.68 per cent of the pension assets, into Federal Government securities.
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Of the money invested in FGN securities, N4.33 trillion, representing 51.32 per cent of the total pension fund, was invested in Federal government bonds.
Pension operators equally invested N1.65 trillion into Treasury Bills, N718.7 billion into Local Money Market Securities and N526.2 billion in Corporate Debt Securities.
With the Retirement Savings Account (RSA) fund now divided into a mutifund structure, that is, from Fund 1 to Fund 4, it reflected in the structure of the pension fund as at October 2018, with N6.55 trillion now in RSA Fund 1, while RSA Fund 2 has N3.75 trillion.
N2 trillion is in Fund 3, even as Fund 4 has N654.2 billion.
Recall that the acting Director-General, PenCom, Mrs. Aisha Dahir-Umar, had said, by the Pension Reforms Act (PRA) 2014, both the employers and the employees must, on a monthly basis, jointly contribute 18 per cent of their incomes into the RSA of employees, which would accumulate with time to make them retire well.
Yes a progressive achievement but.. Why is it that with all these funds, Nigerian Pensioners under the Contributory Scheme still have to “wait” for up to twelve months or even longer after retirement before their entitlements are processed. Where has all the huge funds collected gone to? There is definitely a cause for concern here because Nigerian Pensioners under the Contributory Scheme are still not paid their entitlements promptly. WHY?