Matthew Otoijagha
Pension fund has continued to play a major role in the economy as the National Pension Commission (PenCom) said it has granted approval for payment of N103.42 billion being 25 percent of the balances of Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) holders who were under the age of 50 years and were disengaged from work and unable to secure another job within four months of disengagement.
According PenCom that payment covers since inception of the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS). It noted that N5.14 billion was paid to dismiss 13,609 RSA holders in the fourth quarter of 2018. “The cumulative total number of RSA holders who were paid benefits for temporary loss of job was 302,735 and were paid a total of N103.42 billion being 25 percent of the balances of their RSAs as prescribed by the Pension Reform Act 2014,” it said.
PenCom maintained that the private sector accounted for 95.70 per cent of those who benefitted from these payments while the public sector accounted for 4.30 per cent.
The Commission said it also approved the payment of N3.46 billion as death benefits to the beneficiaries of the 1,075 deceased employees during the quarter under review, which brought the total number of deceased employees from both public and private sectors to 54,312 and that the amount paid during the quarter moved the total payments of death benefits to N167.58 billion.
The Acting Director-General, PenCom, Mrs. Aisha Dahir-Umar said the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) has been very impactful in Nigeria since the commencement of its implementation in 2004, adding that the formation of long term domestic capital, represented by the over N8.91 trillion worth of pension assets as at February 2019, belonging to 8.57 million formal sector participants, is slowly but surely changing Nigeria’s financial landscape.