Hope rises for pensioners as PENCOM assures of payment , a week after retirement

….Says N14.5trillion pension fund not idle

By Chinemerem Okorocha

The National Pension Commission of Nigeria ( PENCOM), declared Thursday , that federal pensioners will no longer face problem of delayed pension payment after retirement .

It also declared that the N14.5trillion pension fund is not idle due to right investments made of them .

Executive Chairman of PENCOM, Aisha Dahiru Umar stated these in her submission to the Senate Committee on Finance currently interfacing with government agencies on proposals for the 2023 – 2025 Medium Term Expenditure Frame Work ( MTEF ) and Fiscal Strategy Paper ( FSP) .

The PENCOM boss said backlog of accrued rights component of pension payments to Pensioners causing delay in payment over the years , is almost cleared by the Federal Government .

According to her, within the last seventeen years , the federal government has been paying N49billion per month to offset the accrued rights backlog of pensioners .

” Late payment of pension to pensioners will be a thing of the past very soon as required steps in that direction , have been taken by the federal government whose retirees are affected”, she said .

She however advised pensioners to carry out required documentation a year to their retirement in fast tracking the whole process.!

She informed the committee that the N14.5trillion available pension fund is not idle as N9 .5trillion out of it , is invested in Federal government security , N1.23trillion in Equity shares while 35% of the fund is invested in money market .

The Committee however said the yearly repeated N102million overhead subvention given the agency by the federal government will be removed aside the N26billion yearly TV inserted into the Commission budget without cash backing .