The Director General National Pension Commission (PenCom), Aisha Dahir-Umar, has said that 70% (N8.89billion) of N12.7 trillion of the pension fund assets belong private sector workers.
Speaking in Abuja at a Town Hall meeting on effective pension administration in the public service organised by the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, the PenCom boss said the contribution belonged to 9.3 million people working in the private sector and federal and state governments.
The Director General who was represented by the Commissioner, Administration, PenCom, Dr. Umar Aminu, put the number of private sector workers, who owned the bulk of the contribution at 5.8 million.
“When we talk of the N12.7 trillion I mentioned today, this money is a contribution that belongs to 9.3 million people, including people who are working for the federal government, the states and, largely, private sector.
“About 5.8 million are actually people from the private sector. The private sector owns over 70 per cent of this money because they contribute more. When we remove the state, we can see that the amount that belong to the federal government employees and contributors is generally less than 10 to 20 per cent. So we need to put this thing into perspective: that you can’t take private sector money for the public sector because when we were talking about reform initially, there were contentious issues that we were confronted with by the private sector that we were going to take their money and use it for the public sector.”
Spaking also at the town hall meeting, Executive Secretary, Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), Dr. Chioma Ejikeme, said the directorate had fully liquidated the 33 per cent arrears for the 2010 pension increment.
She added that over N7.2 billion was paid as arrears and to pensioners not on payroll in addition to payment of entitlement to next of kin of verified deceased pensioners.
Also, Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Dr Folasade Yemi-Esan said the review of the Pension Reform Act, 2014, is a major task that must be accomplished by the federal government.
She added that her office has paid over N2.4 billion to over 594 beneficiaries as death benefits to the next of kin of deceased officers from the N2.5 billion released by the federal government.
