L-R: Sola Adeseun (PM, South-West Zonal Office, PenCom), Mr. Polycarp Anyanwu (Head, Information & Communication Technology Department, PenCom), Mr. Anyim C. Nyerere (Commissioner Technical, PenCom), Mr. Abdulrahman Salem (Head, Contribution & Bond Redemption Department, PenCom), Dr. Alayande (Head, South-West Zonal Office, PenCom).
The National Pension Commission (PenCom) on Wednesday said that its online enrolment application will commence July, 2021.
The commission disclosed this though it’s Commissioner Technical, Mr Anyim Nyerere, at a two-day training/ workshop for Pension Desk Officers (PDOs) on Online Enrolment Application held in Lagos, that the commission is working diligently to enrol 21,000 retirees who retired in 2020 and 2021 but could not be captured due to the COVID-19 pandemic into its newly developed robust enrolment application.
He noted that it is an established norm within PenCom to conduct physical annual retirement verification and enrolment exercise on the Federal Government of Nigeria employees of the Treasury Funded Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) scheduled for retirement within the next fiscal year.
“This exercise is aimed at validating and determining the retirees’ accrued pension liabilities for budgetary allocation by the Federal Government.”
He added that the commission regrets their inability to conduct this physical annual pre-retirement enrolment exercise due to the Global Covid-19 pandemic.
“The PDOs and the public within the pension industry will appreciate the challenges innot conducting the physical pre-retirement enrolment exercise. Hence, the Commission’s (PenCom) desire to ensure that this exercise must be done so as not to affect the validation and determination of the accrued pension liabilities of the would be retirees for the government budgetary purposes,” he said.
He said the Commission has developed the Online Enrolment Application with the capabilities to register, verify and enroll prospective retirees and provide the guidance note accordingly which will help to compute the retirees’ retirement benefits.
This nouveau application, which will be hosted on the Commission’s website, he said would enable prospective retirees log on to register with their details on the Retiree Registration Module (RRM).
On roles to be played by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) he said: “The MDAs will be required to upload the list of potential Retirees who have not been enrolled before (All Employees who have retired but missed previous enrolment must be listed); MDAs would upload the full name and signature specimen of its authorized signatories; MDAs will assist Retirees who cannot do online registration on their own,” he submitted.
He posited that it is on this note that the roles of the PDOs in the Online Enrolment Application becomes very germane, adding that the workshop, therefore, is necessary in order to; expose the PDOs to these newly developed Online Enrolment Application procedures for the verification of the prospective retirees; PDOs will guide prospective retirees on how to complete the information on the Online Enrolment Application Form; and equally ensure that the retirees’ information submitted by the MDAs are accurately completed in line with the online enrolment guidance notes.
Nyerere said the workshop will help equip the PDOs with the requisite knowledge on how the Retiree Registration Module operates for the smooth implementation of the Online Enrolment Application.
According to him, necessary safeguards and modalities have equally been put in place for this exercise and we hope the PDOs will strictly comply with the provisions of the guidance notes on the enrolment for the conduct of the upcoming nationwide pre-retirement verification and enrolment exercise.