PenCom Debunks N3m Per Staff Monthly Salary Claim

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has denied allegation that the least paid employee of the commission earns a salary of N3 million per month.

PenCom stated this in a statement issued yesterday, stressing that the highest salary paid is even less than N1 million.

Noting that the claim is absolutely false, it added that,  “as the false and misleading information on the compensation package of PenCom was being circulated in the traditional and social media, it has become necessary to set the record straight in the interest of the Nigerian public.”

It explained that “right from the inception of the Commission in 2004, the Federal Government mandated the Board to adopt an employee compensation policy that favourably compares to comparator government bodies in the financial services sector, such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“Section 25(2)(b) of the Pension Reform Act 2014 also empowers the Board of the Commission to fix the remuneration, allowances and benefits of the employees.”

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The commission noted that, “the Presidential Committee on the Consolidation of Emoluments in the Public Sector headed by the late Chief Ernest Shonekan, former Head of the Interim National Government, made a number of recommendations which guide the PenCom Board in its compensation review exercises.”

According to the commission, one of the recommendations of the Shonekan-led committee “is that the pay structure of self-funded agencies should be benchmarked with their private sector comparators so as to ensure relativity in such agencies and attract and retain high-caliber professionals.”

The Shonekan Committee, which was set up by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005, it streased, also recommended that the pay structure of regulatory agencies should be benchmarked against sectors they monitor to avoid regulatory capture, and that an annual increase in pay should be undertaken to account for inflation/cost of living adjustment and establishments to attain 50th percentile and above their comparators in the private sector.

PenCom further affirmed that “we made all these facts known in a recently submission to the House of Representatives Committee on Finance over the compensation package of the Commission. We also stated that the last compensation package review was done in 2017 with the approval of the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF). No review has been done in the last five years and this has affected the ability of the Commission to attract, hire and retain staff with competitive skills.”

The commission, however,  implored members of the public to ignore the false and mischievous information on the staff compensation package, noting that, it has nothing to hide and will continue to run a transparent and accountable system.

The House of Representatives Committee on Finance, had last week, criticised  the commission  over the compensation package for it’s workers, believing the money is too much.