Why we created new platform to handle consumers’ complaints—PenCom

KELVIN EGERUE/UFOMBA UZUEGBU

National Pension Commission, PenCom, has cited the need for contributors and retirees to get swift responses to their complaints as the reason for creating a new platform to handle consumers’ complaints.

The Commission, at the 2023 Journalists Conference held Thursday in Lagos, disclosed also, that the new platform, Consumers Protection Department, CPD, was created to enhance customer service in the pension industry by continuously liaising with the pension fund operators, to ensure that services were effectively rendered to consumers.

Head, the Consumer Protection Department of PenCom, Ikenna Chidi-Ebere, while delivering a paper titled: ” Enhancing Customer Service in the Pension Industry”, said the platform was established to replace its erstwhile Corporate Responsibility and Servicom department by the National Pension Commission, PenCom, in keeping to its corporate strategy initiative for 2023-2027.

According to him, contributors and retirees play a crucial role as stakeholders in the pension industry, thus, ensuring their satisfaction through effective and efficient service delivery and complaint resolution aligns perfectly with the Commission’s mandate to achieve excellence in service delivery.

Chidi-Ebere disclosed that the platforms are daily monitored, to proactively ensure smooth responses to the complaints and inquiries received.

Presently, he said, the department records about 150 to 200 complaints daily adding that the department was focused in the area of data capturing to achieve the results.

Earlier in her keynote address, the Director-General of PenCom, Aisha Dahir-Umar, who was represented by the Head, the Corporate Communication department, Abdulkadir Dahir, said PenCom’s proactive regulatory approach, has strengthened the oversight and governance of pension funds,promoting transparency, accountability and safe guarding the interest of pension  contributors.

Also at the Conference, the Commission introduced a new mortgage policy through Pension  Fund Operators Association of Nigeria, PenOp, that will help Retirement Savings Account, RSA, holders, to acquire their own homes, with 25 per cent of their pension.

Nigeria, reportedly has one of the lowest home ownership rates in the world, estimated at 9 per cent of the population, Oguche disclosed in his report.

The new policy hopes to improve home ownership in the country.