FG to Clear 18percent Contributions, Backlog of Workers’ Accrued Rights To RSA, 2014 Till date

DG, PenCom, Mrs Aisha Dahiru

Following the Funds budgeted for 2019, The federal government, has said that it will pay up backlog of outstanding accrued pension rights of its employees and the outstanding three percent additional contributions to the retirement Savings Account(RSA) of its workforce as stated by the 2014 Pension Reform Act.

The National Pension Commission(PenCom) announced this on Monday at the 2019 Pre retirement workshop for prospective retirees in the Contributory Pension Scheme held in Lagos.

The Director General, PenCom, Mrs Aisha Dahiru Umar who was represented by officials from different departments of the commission delivered lectures at the workshop.

According to the PenCom boss, the federal government unlike before when it cuts the amount presented by the commission in the budgets, has in 2019 budget, retained all its budgetary presentations for retirees.

For over three years now, government has been owing accrued rights of workers especially those that worked with federal government ministries, agencies and parastatals.

This has delayed payment of benefits to such retirees as each PFA was waiting for government to compute and release the accrued rights of each government employee before they will commence payment.

Having waited for some period, retirees were demanding that their PFAs should be directed to pay the available money after which they will pay the accrued rights when it comes.

But at the pre-retirement meeting, Mrs Bukky Arekoya one of the resource person from PenCom speaking on behalf of the DG, said the commission this year got government nod on the budget on pension which it presented to government.

According to her, this includes the outstanding accrued rights of all retired and retiring government workers which recent reports put at over N100billion.
Both PenCom and PFAs believe that release of the accrued rights of workers would enhance payment of benefits to workers.

Statistics from government shows that the last money released by the federal government for payment of workers’ accrued rights was in April 2017 when it released N54billion to this effect.

But the commission was optimistic that given government response to its presentations and suggestions on pension matters in 2019 budget, government would release money that will be sufficient for clearing the backlog of workers’ accrued rights.

She also said in the budget, government would release money that will take care of additional three person contributions of government to workers’ retirement savings account as stipulated by the Pension Reform Act 2014.

According to her, since the review of 2004 Pension Reform Act in which government’s contributions to workers’ RSA was upgraded from 15 percent to 18 percent, the federal government has not commenced its implementation as it still limits its contributions to employees’ RSA to 15 percent.

She however said provision has been made for implementation of the 18 percent contributions from 2014 to date in the 2019 budget.

According to her, since unlike before government did not effect any amendment to the commission’s budget proposal, it is a good sign that government would provide all the demands of the commission on behalf of the pensioners in the year’s budget.

The one day pre- retirement workshop held at the University of Lagos Auditorium was organised for staff of Ministries, Departments and Agencies(MDAs) who are due to retire between January and December 2020.

The workshop took pre-retiring workers through lectures on three major topics- enrollment exercise and documentation required delivered by Contributions &bond redemption department, accessing retirement benefits under the contributory pension scheme delivered by resource person from benefits and insurance department and lecture on life after retirement.