FG releases N16.676bn for payment of retirees

Federal Government has released funds totaling N16.67 billion for the payment of accrued pension rights of retires.

Authorities of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) who confirmed this on Wednesday informed that the N16.67 billion release is to take care of the accrued rights of pensioners who retired this year.

A statement from PenCom confirming the release of the funds noted that “The National Pension Commission (PenCom) is pleased to announce the release of N16.67 billion by the Federal Government for the payment of Accrued Pension Rights to 2021 retirees of Treasury-funded Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs)”

It would be recalled that the Federal Government had earlier settled all arrears of accrued pension rights payments to the verified and enrolled retirees up to December 2020.

The latest release of N16.67 billion is in keeping with the federal government’s resolve to liquated accrued pension rights of the retirees of Treasury-funded Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

The development comes as a boost to the efforts of the PenCom to ensure for the success of the public sector pension scheme as been piloted under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS). While the CPS is primarily for the formal sector, PenCom has gone ahead to initiate the micro pension scheme through which it wants to bring on board operators of the informal sector of the economy as to enable them plan for their retirement.

Nigeria’s total pension asset value rose by N123.47 billion in July 2021 to close at N12.78 trillion compared to N12.66 trillion recorded in the previous month. This is contained in the pension funds industry report for the month July as released by the National Pension Commission.

According to the report, the net asset value of Nigeria’s pensions fund recorded a 0.98% increase in the month of July 2021, while 22,349 RSA registrations were recorded in the same month increasing total contributors to 9.4 million.

A cursory look at the data reveals pension asset value gained N474.49 billion between January and July of the year. In the same vein, 189,765 more contributors have been registered into the scheme, year-to-date.

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