As of August this year, National Pension
Commission had recovered N3.4bn monthly pension contributions of
workers, but which were not remitted by the employers to the employees
Retirement Savings Accounts.
PenCom officials exclusively told our
correspondent that the recovery agents employed by the commission
successfully recovered the money from the defaulting employers.
The commission had recovered N3bn as of the end of the third quarter of 2013.
The commission engaged the recovery
agents to go after employers, who were notorious for defaulting in the
remittance of the monthly contributions of the workers to their
respective Pension Fund Administrators as at when due.
According to PenCom, the employers were fined huge sums in addition to paying the outstanding contributions.
PenCom noted that it had employed
different approaches to persuade the employers to embrace voluntary
compliance with the provisions of the law regarding remittance of
pension contributions through public enlightenments, media campaigns and
collaboration with regulatory and professional bodies.
Other means employed include engagement
of consultants, disclosure requirement and issuance of compliance
letters, financial literacy and enforcement.
The Acting-Director General, PenCom, Mrs.
Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, said the commission had earlier issued demand
notices to errant employers, whose liabilities were established by the
recovery agents, to remit the outstanding pension contributions and
interest penalties into the RSAs of their employees.
“In line with this directive, some
defaulting employers remitted outstanding pension contributions and
interest penalties into the RSAs of their employees,” she said.
Anohu-Amazu said interest of about N183.61m was received from the remittances.
PenCom, she noted, scaled up its
compliance and enforcement strategies in order to ensure adherence with
the Pension Reform Act, 2014.
Consequently, she said, sanctions were applied in line with the compliance framework.
The regulator said that the commission
had participated in public enlightenment programmes as well as
collaborated with various stakeholders to ensure compliance with the
law.
She said that the commission received
applications for issuance of compliance certificates from private sector
organisations, adding that while some were issued, others were turned
down due to various inadequacies.
“These inadequacies included such issues
as non-remittance of pension contributions for the appropriate period
and non-provision of group life insurance policy for their employees,”
she said.
Anohu-Amazu had canvassed more
empowerment of the commission during the amendment of the PRA 2004,
because sanctions provided under it were no longer sufficient deterrents
against infractions of the law.
“The commission in its regulatory and
enforcement activities, enhance the protection of pension fund assets,
unlock the opportunities for the deployment of pension assets for
national development, and review the sanctions regime to reflect current
realities,” she said.
The amended PRA, 2014, however, reviewed some obsolete provisions in the law to beef up the regulatory powers of PenCom.
According to Anohu-Amazu, the total
number of registered RSAs under the Contributory Pension Scheme rose
from 1.67million to 2.78 million between 2006 and 2007.
From a figure of 5.9 million as of the
end of 2013, she said the total number workers registered under the
pension scheme stood at 6.12 million as of June this year.
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