Registration for pension scheme hits 8.85m, funds now N9.6tn

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has said the number of Nigerian workers that have registered under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) has hit 8.85 million.

The acting Director General of PenCom, Mrs. Aisha Dahir-Umar disclosed this in Benin, the Edo State capital on Thursday during a pension seminar, adding that pension assets, as at the end of September stood at N9.58 trillion.

She said: “As of September 2019, the number of registered contributors under the CPS had grown to 8.85 million while pension fund assets had grown to N9.58tn. This growth indeed justifies our emphasis on the safety of pension funds as the bedrock of sustaining the CPS. We assure all stakeholders that the pension reform remains steadily on course.”

Dahir-Umar pointed out that it was the strategic focus of the commission to expand access to pension via the CPS, as a veritable tool for economic development.

This, according to her, align with the pension reform objective of old age poverty reduction and improvement in the welfare and general standard of living.

Read also: Report says Africans make up 46% world’s registered mobile money customers; see why Fintech is growing fast in Africa

She said the quest to expand coverage of pension was being pursued through some transformational initiatives, especially the micro pension plan.

Dahir-Umar further stated that the MPP, launched in March 2019 by President Muhammadu Buhari, was targeted at the informal sector and self-employed who were not mandatorily covered under the CPS.

“It is noteworthy that the MPP was designed with significant flexibility in recognition of the peculiarities of the targeted population,” she said.

According to the PenCom boss, the Enhanced Contributor Registration System (ECRS) was an in-house developed ICT application, which was deployed in June 2019 to enhance the integrity of the contributors’ database, adding that it had been integrated with the National Identity Management Commission database to help authenticate the uniqueness of individuals seeking to register under the CPS.

According to her, the ECRS provided a platform for the registration of micro pension plan participants and is a major step towards the introduction of the transfer window, which will enable contributors to change to the PFAs of their choice, in line with Section 13 of the Pension Reform Act 2014.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now