Matthew Otoijagha
The Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) has urged employers of labour to comply with provision of the Pension Act and ensure they remit to the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).
Speaking in Abuja during the interactive meeting held between NECA and Pencom, NECA director general, Dr. Timothy Olawale said though the bulk of employers who fail to comply with the contribution pension scheme are in the unorganized sector, NECA has been encouraging its members on strict compliance to avoid penalty.
According to him, the essence of the interactive session is to enlighten stakeholders on new developments on contributory pension scheme. He said, “Periodically we come together so that we can learn from one another. It also provides opportunity for PenCom to get direct feedback from the employers. Most of non-compliance issues are those who are not in the organized sector.”
In her remarks, acting director general of PenCom, Hajia Aisha Dahir-Umar said the impact of continuous dialogue with members of the Organized Private Sector (OPS) under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) has been invaluable.
The DG who was represented by the head of Compliance and Enforcement in PenCom, Salihu Bwala said the commission recently developed a robust application, the Enhanced Contributions Registration System (ECRS) for the pension industry.
He said, “The application has been developed and the Pension Fund Administrators are currently using it for new RSA registrations, as well as the recapture of the data of contributors who previously had RSAs. The application is linked to National Identity Number (NIN) and would assist in addressing the issues of multiple registrations in the database of the PFAs. Accordingly, all employers are urged to encourage their employees to present themselves to their respective PFAs for recapture.
“The OPS would recall that following the enactment of the PRA, the Commission was saddled with the responsibility of supervising the transfer of the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) contribution of employees into their respective RSAs under the CPS. To date, contribution worth N7.45 billion has been transferred to the RSAs of the NSITF Scheme contributors. The pension industry is one of the latest growing in the country through the efforts of the OPS and labour. The CPS currently has about N9trillion pension assets.”