Trustfund moves to boost culture of saving among youth

Plans are underway by the Trustfund Pension Limited, to boost the culture of savings amongst young people by introducing writing competition on savings in senior secondary schools across the country.

Speaking at the maiden edition of the Trustfund Pensions essay competition for senior secondary school students in Abuja, as part of activities to mark the World Savings Day, the Managing Director of Trustfund, Mrs Helen Da-Souza, said the essay competition was initiated to encourage students and young people to embrace savings culture early towards preparing them for the mandatory contributory pension scheme. 

The Trustfund boss, who was represented by the Executive Director, Business and Personnel Administration, Nasir Musa explained that the company believes that when young people embrace the culture of savings early, it would become a lifestyle by the time they are ready for the world of work.

Da-Souza added: “This competition falls under our Corporate Social Responsibility initiative which is captioned, ‘How we touch our world’. We have embarked on various projects with the intention of impacting our business environment and the society at large. Some of these are: sponsorship of National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) football tournament, donation of reflective jackets to offices of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corp (NSCDC).”

She said the 2018 edition of the competition, which had ‘saving today leads to a happy tomorrow’, was carefully chosen to expose young people to the enormous advantages of savings.

She disclosed that an essay writing competition amongst young people would expose the pension industry to young people’s inner perception about the importance of saving, saying, “we feel that their own perceptions will go a long way to help us develop products that will suit their needs in the future. The culture of saving keeps evolving hence the need for the stakeholders to respond appropriately to these dynamics. This will enable us know what matters to them and what do they want to save for.”

The Trustfund chief also hinted that the culture of saving is indeed growing in the country as more Nigerians are embracing voluntary pension contribution scheme in addition to the structured contribution.

Trustfund said it presently has over 700,000 customers out of which 250,000 pensioners have been paid since 2006 when the foremost pension firm was established.

On her part, Company Secretary of Trustfund Pensions, Ms Monica Ani said no time is too early to inculcate the culture of saving. 

“We believe that one cannot start too young to cultivate the culture of saving. It is important for young people to understand the need to save even if what they are saving is for is for specific things that they do not need immediately. So, if we start now by inculcating it in them, they will get used to saving as they grow,” she said.

Ani also submitted that though the contributory pension scheme has helped boost the culture of saving amongst workers and retired Nigerians because the participants no longer see the scheme as a kind of ‘deprivation’.

She hinted that the annual essay competition would be expanded to include other schools across the country in conjunction with education boards.

Students from all the 67 Senior Secondary Schools in Abuja participated in the competition with a team of teachers selected to mark the scripts and select the best 10 essays. 

At the end of the selection process, Glory Chuks Amacha of Model Secondary School, Maitama emerged the first; Emmanuel Marvellous Chimaamanda of Government Girls Secondary School, Dutse came second; Agianpuye Victoria of Government Girls Science Secondary School, Kuje emerged third while Esther Kayode of Government Secondary School, Karshi came fourth.