Aisha Dahir-Umar, DG PenCom
BY NKECHI NAECHE-ESEZOBOR— In it quest to close knowledge gap and improve the nation’s Contributory Pension Scheme,(CPS), the National Pension Commission, (PenCom) has developed five strategic focus areas to drive the scheme.
According to the commission this development is necessary following some recent discovery in the area of enlightenment, adding that workers and retirees are still not fully informed about the scheme.
The Director General of the Commission, Aisha Dahir-Umar, disclosed this during a one day media workshop for Insurance and Pension Journalists in Lagos, said the Agency is laying emphasis on Public Enlightenment and education as one of the five Strategic Focus Areas currently pursued by the Commission.
The Director General who was represented by the Head Corporate Communication, PenCom, Mr. Peter Aghahowa, noted that the commission is committed to reawaken its public enlightenment and education campaign in order to address these challenges in the scheme.
The strategic focus according to her, include the resolution of outstanding pension liabilities of the Federal Government; portfolio diversification of pension fund investments, improvement in customer service delivery across the pension industry and unrelenting pursuit of sustainable growth of the pension industry by expanding coverage of the CPS.
She also said that the RSA Transfer Process’, provides insights into the features of the RSA Transfer System (RTS), which enables the seamless transfer of RSAs from one PFA to another among other things.
She hinted that President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the payment of outstanding accrued pension rights for verified and enrolled retirees of treasury-funded MDAs that are yet to be paid their retirement benefits, as well as the back log of death benefits claims due to beneficiaries of deceased employees of treasury funded MDAs.
On technological innovation, she said the commission designed and developed online Enrolment Application, which has capabilities to register, verify and enroll prospective retirees of Treasury-Funded Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
She said it was the design and deployment for the Retirement Savings Account (RSA) Transfer System (RTS), which was launched in November 2020.
The RTS is a Computer Application developed by the Commission, through which RSA holders transfer their RSAs from one Pension Fund Administrator (PFA) to another. Indeed, the activation of the RSA transfer provision, which deepens individual choices, is a major milestone in the implementation of the CPS.
