The National Pension Commission of Nigeria on Thursday disclosed that federal pensioners will no longer face problem of delayed pension payment after retirement.
The PENCOM also stated that the N14.5 trillion pension fund is not idle due to right investments made of them.
These were made known by Director General of PENCOM, Aisha Dahiru Umar, who appeared before the Senate Committee on Finance currently interfacing with government agencies on proposals for the 2023-2025 Medium Term Expenditure Frame Work and Fiscal Strategy Paper.
The PENCOM boss said the backlog of accrued rights component of pension payments to pensioners causing delay in payment over the years was almost cleared by the Federal Government.
According to Umar, in the last 17 years, the Federal Government has been paying N49 billion per month to offset the accrued rights backlog of pensioners.
She said: “Late payment of pension to pensioners will be a thing of the past very soon as required steps in that direction have been taken by the Federal Government whose retirees are affected.”
Umar however advised pensioners to carry out required documentation a year to their retirement in fast tracking the whole process.
She informed the committee that the N14.5 trillion available pension fund is not idle as N9.5 trillion out of it has been invested in Federal Government security, N1.23 trillion in equity shares, while 35 per cent of the fund is invested in money market.
The Committee however said the yearly repeated N102 million overhead subvention given the agency by the Federal Government will be removed aside the N26 billion yearly inserted into the Commission’s budget without cash backing.
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