Pension system in Nigeria is parasitic, it leeches on workers — NLC

The Nigeria Labour Congress, on Thursday, stated that the country’s pension system has fallen short of allaying the concerns of Nigerian workers.

To support this assertion, the NLC noted that recent system inadequacies prompted the police to lobby the labour congress on behalf of removing police officers from the nation’s pension programme.

NLC President Joe Ajaero revealed this at the pension sector roundtable in Abuja, which had as its theme “Strategic Dialogue to Enhance Private Sector Participation in Pension Scheme.”

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Ajaero was represented by the Assistant General Secretary, NLC, Onyeka Chris.

The roundtable was organised by the National Policy Advocacy Centre of the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, in collaboration with the National Pension Commission.

The NLC President said, “If you look at the pension system in Nigeria, what we can say is that as it is today, the pension system does not address to a large extent the fears of Nigerian workers. That is the reality and that is why some of us have concluded that the pension system in Nigeria is parasitic. It leeches on the workers.

“A worker who had saved about N8m in the last 10 years in his Retirement Savings Account, suddenly with all the economic challenges, the value has crashed. Perhaps if he had used the N8m at that time, he would have been a rich rice merchant.

“But suddenly the worker cannot purchase the bags of rice that he would have wanted to buy. That N8m in the last 10 years has crashed to probably N1m today. That is what we suffer. So, the pension system has not protected the workers.”

Ajaero added that these issues should be looked into, saying, ‘issues about how we can make the pension system work for workers while they are alive should be looked into.’

“We must also make the pension system attractive to people in the informal sector by protecting the pension funds itself. The government is saying that it wants to borrow from pensions.

“Yes, in other climes, governments borrow funds from the pension system and they pay back. But we are afraid that when our money goes into the pocket of the government, we don’t know what will happen to it. That is our problem.

“Workers are bearing the brunt of the negative impact of our pension system, let us make the system more inclusive and more worker-friendly so that some of us will get involved.”

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