This leaves 17 states that were not fully compliant with the new pension scheme.
The eight states, according to the Commission, include Lagos, FCT, Osun, Kaduna, Ekiti, Edo, Delta, and Anambra.
The states were fully compliant because they remitted both the employee’s and employers’ portions every month.
Meanwhile, 25 states, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) paid N236.7 billion in pension contributions into the Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) of their respective workers in the last four years.
Revealing this development in a paper delivered at the ‘3rd Quarter 2024 Consultative Forum for States and FCT’ sponsored by the PenCom, in Lagos, the Acting Director-General, PenCom, Ms. Omolola Oloworaran, said, the amount came in between January 2020 and the second quarter of 2024.
According to her, pension contributions are designed to guarantee every worker is captured in the new pension scheme known as CPS, to boost retirement life.
The Pension Reforms Act (PRA) 2014 makes provision for employees to remit eight per cent of their salary and employers to make 10 per cent of their worker’s salary, making a cumulative 18 per cent that should be remitted into the RSA of each worker every month.
Disclosing the benefits of adopting CPS to state governments, Oloworaran noted that one of the significant benefits of adopting the CPS is access to accumulated pension funds for infrastructural development through the issuance of state bonds.
She disclosed that five states, including Lagos, Niger, Osun, Ekiti, and Delta have successfully leveraged the platform of CPS to issue state bonds that pension funds subscribed to. Notably, she said the Lekki-Ikoyi Bridge in Lagos was partly financed with pension funds.
Promising that the Commission, under her leadership, is committed to ensuring that all retirees, from both the public and private sectors, receive their retirement benefits as and when due, she added that the Commission should focus on 26 states with CPS or CDBS laws, but is yet to commence implementation.
“Our focus will be to constructively engage these States in a sustained manner and work towards expanding the coverage of CPS at the sub-national level. We will also intensify our efforts with relevant State Government Agencies to resolve the backlog in accrued rights payments to CPS retirees. In addition, we are working to ensure that pensioners under the CPS and other pension arrangements benefit from pension increments provided for in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended),” she added.
As part of our strategy towards pension reforms in a greater number of states, she encouraged some flexibility in the adoption of Contributory Pension arrangements in a manner that suits each state.
She proposed that states adopt the CPS for new employees and/or those employed for 10 years or less as this would substantially reduce the burden of accrued pension rights payable upon retirement under the CPS.
Similarly, the Head of Service (HoS), Lagos State, Olabode Agoro said, pension administration must be given serious attention to safeguard workers’ contributions towards their retirement, saying, “In Lagos State, we also recognise the need for protection of workers’ rights and as such, channel our commitment to promoting transparency, accountability, and efficiency in pension administration and management.”
