Trustfund blames inadequate data for delay in payment of pensions

The inability of pensioners to access their pension under the contributory pension scheme has been blamed on the submission of incomplete data by workers at the point of exit.

Regional Manager, North One, Kaduna regional office of Trustfund Pensions, Alhassan Asuba, who stated this at the 2016 employers forum and interactive session in Kaduna, identified incomplete documentation by workers as the most formidable challenge confronting the pension industry.

He explained: “When money is paid to Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) through the Custodians and we pay retirees through the same Custodians. This is the point where incomplete documentation poses a great challenge. We as PFA some times are unable to effect the payment if the documentation is not complete. Trustfund often embark on customers and employers fora to educate workers that are about to retire on the need to submit complete documents or update additional ad recent information about themselves before exiting. Things become more difficult for them when they exit. It is better for them and easier for us, for workers to update their bio-data before they retire. No worker remains at work forever because every worker must exit through termination of appointment, retirement or death as point of exit.”

Asuba also hinted that plans are underway to grant workers 25 per cent of their contribution to enable them buy houses upon retirement.“Letters have been sent out by the National Pension Commission (Pencom) for retirees to be able to use 25 per cent of their contribution to buy houses. The reason for delay in its implementation is that the six million Naira the regulators want to peg it is still not acceptable to labour and other stakeholders, which they say would only be serving the interest of the big people and would exclude junior workers. This is why labour is demanding that the figure be reviewed downward for it to cover most workers,” he added.

Asuba stressed that such an action would propel workers to show more interest in pension matters, saying, “people are lackadaisical now because they feel they would benefit so little upon exit. But if they know that they can own a house upon retirement, they would be more eager to know to know when, what and how their retirement fund is managed and performing. The decision to make mortgage available was made because it emerged that that is one of the major challenges workers are confronted with.”

On his part, Head of Contribution and Commission of the Zenith Pensions Custodian, Dele Afolayan, urged stakeholders to embrace Electronic Pension Contribution and Collection System (EPCCOS) for easy upload of schedules even before payments are made.

His words: “Most of the payment challenges the sector would be alleviated If all the stakeholders can embrace the new payment platform called ‘Electronic Pension Contribution and Collection System (EPCCOS)’ that allows schedules to be uploaded to the platform automated before payments are made to the banks.

There are major challenges confronting the pension industry as far as the Custodians are concerned is the remittances are made into accounts without corresponding schedules which in turn causes delay in crediting the Retirement Saving Accounts (RSAs).”

He also decried payments made through electronic platforms where people transfer money arbitrarily to accounts without dropping the schedules, saying, “most of the payments that come into accounts come with improper narrations that made knowing names of employers extremely difficult but the introduction of EPCCOS is expected to correct all these going forward.”