Get Guardian on GoogleThe National Pension Commission (PenCom) has announced that the Federal Government has cleared its backlog of accrued pension rights for federal employees under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), with payments now 41 months ahead of schedule.
The Director-General of PenCom, Omolola Oloworaran, disclosed this on Wednesday at the Pension Correspondents Association of Nigeria Conference in Abuja.
Oloworaran, who was represented by the Head of Corporate Communications, Ibrahim Buwai, said the government had paid the accrued pension rights of enrolled federal employees up to December 2029.
She explained that the development marked a significant improvement from the previous situation, when pension rights were 21 months in arrears.
“We are moving from a position where we had, where our full pension rights were 21 months in arrears, to where we are today, 41 months in surplus,” she said.
“And 41 months in surplus means that federal government employees who have not yet retired and who have enrolled have had their accrued pension rights paid up to December 2029.”
The PenCom boss also said delays in processing retirement benefits had largely been eliminated, noting that retirees now receive their pensions within 48 hours of retirement.
“The issue of delays of payment of pension has now become history, and now pensions are being paid within a maximum of 48 hours from retirement,” she said.
According to her, the improvements form part of broader efforts to strengthen the pension administration system and ensure retirees have timely access to their entitlements.
Oloworaran further highlighted the PensionCare initiative, which she said was designed to reduce the financial burden of healthcare expenses on retirees and enable them to retain more of their monthly pension income for other essential needs.
She explained that the initiative would operate sustainably through funding from pension fund operators, with support from donors expected to complement the arrangement.
On the minimum pension guarantee scheme, the PenCom director-general said the programme, which has been provided for under the pension reform framework since 2004, had finally commenced after years of delays caused by funding constraints.
She said retirees whose pension payments fall below the approved minimum threshold would have their benefits adjusted to meet the new standard.
Also speaking at the conference, the Executive Secretary of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), Tolulope Odunaiya, said the directorate had introduced remote verification and enhanced life-status checks for pensioners under the Defined Benefits Scheme.
Odunaiya, who was represented by the Head of Corporate Communications, Olugbenga Ajayi, said the initiative would enable pensioners to complete their verification exercises regardless of their location, including those living outside Nigeria and in rural communities.
“With the new initiative of this verification without borders, pensioners in the US, in Uganda, in our villages can as well do their verification,” she said.
She also disclosed that registration had commenced for PTAD’s proposed health insurance programme ahead of its formal launch.
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of Awabah, a pension-focused financial technology company, Tunji Andrews, said the firm had simplified enrolment into its personal pension plan by reducing the required registration fields from 25 to four.
Andrews said the innovation was aimed at making pension participation easier for informal-sector workers, who could now enrol and make contributions through point-of-sale terminals.
He said the company had partnered with Moniepoint and Interswitch to facilitate onboarding and payments through the terminals.
“As of today, those fields have been reduced to four fields only. Because of that innovation, we’ve been able to put onboarding and payments for PPP on POS terminals,” he said.
In her remarks, the Chief Executive Officer of the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp), Anthonia Ifeanyi-Okoro, represented by Olajumoke Akinwa, called for increased investment of pension assets in critical sectors of the economy, including infrastructure, housing and energy.
She said pension funds, if properly channelled into productive sectors, could support economic development while safeguarding contributors’ retirement benefits.
“Properly channelled into infrastructure, housing, energy, and productive sectors, these funds can help finance the growth we seek, while still protecting the retirement benefits of contributors,” she said.
Similarly, the National President of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Godwin Abumisi, represented by Ahmad Ibrahim-Gazali, called for the extension of the new exit benefits to retirees who left service between 2004 and December 2025.
He disclosed that N12.3 billion had been released for the exit-benefit programme.
Earlier, the President of the Pension Correspondents Association of Nigeria, Nana Musa, urged journalists to promote public understanding of pension reforms through accurate, balanced and responsible reporting.
