In a move to clear the accrued pension of workers who retired from federal civil service, the federal government has, so far, settled about N1.2 trillion of its arrears to the concerned retirees across the country.
The payment made was from the inception of the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), precisely, in 2004 to the first quarter of 2025 to ensure workers who retired under the federal civil service are receiving their monthly pension payment as and when due,
The unpaid accrued pensions have earlier denied retired federal workers access to their contributions as accrued rights must be paid into workers’ Retirement Savings Account(RSA), before they can be allowed to draw a monthly pension. This system denied most retirees access to their pension benefits when indeed they have money in their RSA.
However, in the last two years, the federal government has paid over N700 billion pension arrears, in its determination to clear the pension backlog that has beclouded the new scheme.
To this end, the federal government has now cleared the backlog till March 2025, leaving only April and May backlog to be attended to. In this vein, the government has also floated N750 billion pension bonds which would be instrumental in clearing the pension backlog.
This is as even as the National Pension Commission(PenCom) also introduces ‘Pension Boost,’ an initiative that is expected to commence this month of June, with about 223,000 retirees expected to witness increases in their RSAs, thereby, increasing the monthly benefits payment from N8.2 billion to about N11.2 billion.
Speaking at the 2nd Quarter PenCom Press Conference in Ikeja, Lagos yesterday, the director general, PenCom, Ms. Omolola Oloworaran added that, the N750 billion pension bonds floated by the current administration under President Bola Tinubu, ensures that arrears are quickly offset as quickly as possible as the concerned retirees are now drawing their monthly pension as and when due.
She vowed that the commission is still engaging the government to offset the remaining arrears, promising contributors that a new dawn beckons in the pension industry, under her administration.
On the pension boost, she said, only the retirees under Programmed Withdrawal will benefit from the initiative, noting that the boost emanates from investment returns on pension assets.
Warning violators of the Pension Reforms Act (PRA), especially, erring employers who fail to remit the pension of their employees that their doom days are here, she stressed that, the regulatory body is partnering relevant stakeholders to ensure that companies without pension plans for their workers were outrightly disqualified from bidding for government contracts or businesses in the private sector.
She said, PenCom is working with State governments to increase compliance at the state level.
On his part, the head of Surveillance, PenCom, Abdulrahman Muhammad(A.M) Saleem, pointed out that, the pension fund assets increased by N820 billion within a quarter as it grew from N22. 51 trillion in December 2024 to N23. 33 trillion at the end of the first quarter of the year, which is, 31st of March, 2025.
He added that a sum of N294.40 billion were accessed by workers who were under the CPS but lost their jobs, between 2004 and the first quarter of 2025, leveraging on the 25 per cent they were allowed by law to access, to do so. He stated that about 538,237 retirees have so far benefited from this window.
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