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NPC targets informal sector in new pension regime

By Bertram Nwannekanma and Adaku Onyenucheya
22 February 2017   |   2:31 am
Energised by the successes recorded by the new pension reform, which led to monumental increment of pension holdings to the tune of N6 trillion, the National Pension Commission...

Chinelo Anohu-Amazu

Energised by the successes recorded by the new pension reform, which led to monumental increment of pension holdings to the tune of N6 trillion, the National Pension Commission (NPC) is set to target the informal sector in the first quarter of 2017.

The Director General of the Commission, Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, disclosed this last Friday at an executive breakfast meeting held by Society for Corporate Governance Nigeria, with the theme: “Corporate Governance: a Pension Industry perspective”.

She said the decision was hinged on the number of the informal sector, which consist a large chunk of the nation’s work force, adding that macro-pension scheme is also been introduced to the grassroots for effectiveness.

“The macro-pension scheme is going down to the grassroots and make sure that people understand, not only understand pension but also participate,” she said.

The Director -General added that pension transitional arrangement directory has been introduced to cater for those that are exempted from the contributory pension scheme.

According to her, NPC has further introduced safeguards as a corporate governance mechanism to ensure safety of the contributory pension scheme

Some of them, Mrs. Anohu-Amazu said include investing 71 per cent of the N6 trillion equity in Federal Government securities, N50 billion mortgage refinancing, strong legal and institutional framework, separation of custody from administrative of pension assets, meticulous investment limits and risks rating requirement as well as segregation of Pension funds from assets of operators and daily monitoring of investment of pension funds.

The Director General, who was represented by Head, Research and Corporate Strategy Department of the Commission, Dr. Farouk Aminu noted that before the reform in 2004, the system was bedeviled with enormous challenges.

Some of which include, lack of effective regulation and supervision in both public and private sector and that most private scheme were resignation rather then retirement scheme.

He said: “There is lack of transparency and implementation of pension, we had issues with poor administration, corruption, lack of pension data base, issues of addition of ghost pensioners, issues of government giving money to pension administrators to pay money and they will refuse to pay.”

He said that some of the issues have been tackled with the reform of the pension scheme, adding that the macro-pension scheme is been introduced to the grassroots to enable an effective system.

“The macro-pension scheme is going down to the grassroots and make sure that people understand, not only understand pension but also participate,” he said.

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