The National Pension Commission recently disclosed that it approved N19.85bn as lump sum payment for 6,006 retirees in the second quarter of 2020.

According to the commission, the pensioners comprised 4,684 retirees who chose programmed withdrawal as their retirement option and were granted N15.44bn lump sum, and 1,382 retirees who chose life annuity and were granted N4.41bn lump sum.

The report on retirees on programmed withdrawal during the quarter under review said, “The sum of N15.44bn was approved for payment as lump sum and N215.57m as monthly programmed withdrawals to 4,684 retirees.”

On retirement by annuity, the commission said it approved a total of 1,382 applications for retirement under life annuity during the quarter.

“The 1,382 retirees received N4.41bn as lump sum payment and paid premium of N9.8bn to insurance companies in exchange for monthly annuity of N89.33 million,” it said.

PenCom said it granted approval for the payment of the entire Retirement Savings Account balances of the categories of retirees whose RSA balances were N550,000 or below, and considered insufficient to procure a programmed withdrawal or annuity of a reasonable amount over an expected life span.