The Federal Government has released N13.89 billion for the payment of accrued rights for Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) to those who retired last year.
The news was made known by the National Pension Commission on Wednesday, January 4, 2023 in an advertorial obtained by The PUNCH titled ‘Federal Government releases N13.89bn for payment of accrued rights for Contributory Pension Scheme retirees who retired in the year 2022’.
It stated, “The National Pension Commission is pleased to inform all its stakeholders, particularly retirees of treasury-funded Ministries, Departments and Agencies who retired in the year 2022, that the Federal Government has released the sum of N13.89bn for the payment of their accrued pension rights.
“The accrued pension rights represent an employee’s benefits for the past years of service up to June 2004, when the CPS came into effect.
It continues: “Accordingly, PenCom is processing remittances into the various Retirement Savings Accounts of the affected retirees, and their Pension Fund Administrators will notify them in due course. Finally, PenCom appreciates the efforts of his excellency, Mr President for his untiring support and commitment to the implementation of the CPS and ensuring the welfare of retirees.”
On the other hand, Aisha Dahir-Umar, the Director-General, National Pension Commission earlier revealed in her report on the pension industry for 2021, that the Federal Government paid a total of N980.18bn to retirees of treasury funded Ministries, Departments and Agencies from the inception of the Contributory Pension Scheme in 2004 to December 2021.
She said, “In addition, the Federal Government continued to fund the Retirement Benefits Bond Redemption Fund account. With the release of N100.29bn for the payment of accrued rights to retirees of treasury funded MDAs, this brought the total amount released by the Federal Government into the RBBRF account, from inception to 31 December 2021, to N980.18bn.”
In her words, she said the most significant development in the pension industry in 2021 was the successful reduction of outstanding pension liabilities of the Federal Government under the Contributory Pension Scheme.
Aisha continued stating that PenCom obtained presidential approval for N159.46bn to defray some aspects of outstanding pension liabilities of the Federal Government under the CPS.
Consequently, she said, N40.55bn, being the outstanding accrued rights of 6,282 retirees and 2,329 deceased employees, was paid during the year.
She added that N66.83bn was remitted into the Retirement Savings Accounts of 85,743 retirees and 693,229 active employees, being the 2.5 per cent shortfall in the rate of employer pension contributions as of December 2021. The balance of N52.08bn was processed in the 2022 financial year.
