National Pension Commission, PENCOM, has vowed to prosecute companies and establishment who deduct salaries of their employees without remitting same to the designated pension managers.
The Director General of the Commission, Mrs Chinelo Anohu-Amazu made the disclosure while speaking with State House Correspondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential Villa, Abuja yesterday..
She also stated that the Commission was working hard to ensure that establishments which were yet to open a Retired Savings Accounts, RSA, comply.
She said “right now even in PenCom, we have a whole department devoted to enforcement and compliance. We have also engaged recovery agents because the compliance is on many levels. Some people have made deductions from their salaries and have not been remitted into their Retirement Savings Account (RSA).
“We are calling out to those people and we are going to work with the appropriate law enforcement agencies because it is a financial crime to take money out of an employee’s salary and do not then remit it to his Retirement Savings Account. It is something we take seriously.
“Then those who have not even complied at all, who have no RSA, who have no savings and part of what the commission is prioritising this year is to ensure that very one. It doesn’t mean that you have to be in a formal employment. Those in the informal sector will also be brought under the scheme because they are the ones that are most in need of a retirement saving plan.”
The DG who led a delegation of the PENCOM officials to brief President Buhari on the activities of the Commission also revealed that only 6.637million retirement savings account holders currently reside with them.
She said, “We have just finished briefing the President on the affairs of the Pension Industry, basically to show him the landscape from 2004 when the pensions reforms kicked off till date and what has been going on till date and our challenges.
“The challenges are largely to deal with compliance. We need a lot more people on the scheme and he has directed that we work with the Vice President so that we can get the NEC to work with the PenCom to ensure that all the states are in full compliance as soon as possible.
“The PenCom reforms have introduced the pension contributory scheme. The scorecard remains that we have 6.637million retirement savings account holders today and what that has done is show us the opportunity for more people to get in because that is only about 11% of the working population and the scheme has also given the retirement savings account holder freedom to determine how his retirement benefit would be administered”, she said.
Also speaking on the challenges encountered by retirees in accessing their benefits after retirement, Amazu said that they have received directives from President Buhari to resolve the discrepancies.
She also assured on the safety of the pension funds in the hands of Pension Funds Administrators, PFAs.
