…says N14.5trillion pension fund not idle
The National Pension Commission of Nigeria ( PENCOM), has assured federal Pensioners that they will no longer face the problem of prolonged delay of their pension benefits after their retirement from the service.
Executive Chairman of PENCOM, Aisha Dahiru Umar stated these in her submission to the Senate Committee on Finance currently interfacing with government agencies on proposals for the 2023 – 2025 Medium Term Expenditure Frame Work ( MTEF ) and Fiscal Strategy Paper ( FSP) while also declaring that the N14.5trillion pension fund is not idle due to right investments made of them .
According to her, the backlog of accrued rights component of pension payments to Pensioners causing delay in payment over the years , is almost cleared by the Federal Government, stating that within the last seventeen years, the federal government has been paying N49billion per month to offset the accrued rights backlog of pensioners .
“Late payment of pension to pensioners will be a thing of the past very soon as required steps in that direction , have been taken by the federal government whose retirees are affected”, she said .
However, she advised pensioners to carry out required documentation a year to their retirement to fast track the whole process.
She equally informed the committee that the N14.5 trillion available pension fund is not idle as N9 .5trillion out of it , is invested in Federal Government Security , N1.23trillion in Equity shares while 35% of the fund is invested in money market .
The Committee while responding to her presentation said the yearly repeated N102million overhead subvention given the agency by the federal government will be removed aside the N26billion yearly inserted into the Commission budget without cash backing .
However she disclosed that her commission would need a sum of N500 millions to acquire offices in the six geo political zones.
