By Rosemary Onuoha

A TOTAL of N395.20 billion has been paid  to 186,730 retirees since the inception  the Contributory Pension Scheme, CPS in 2004.

According to the National Pension Commission, PenCom, a breakdown of the figure shows that monthly payments to the  retirees stood at N6.35 billion monthly up to September, 2016.

Head of Benefits and Insurance Department of PenCom, Mr. Olulana Loyinmi, who disclosed this said though the CPS has been a success story unlike the old Defined Benefit Scheme, there has been smooth payment of pension benefits since the inception of the scheme in 2004.

Loyinmi said that a total of N55.5 billion has been deducted from the N 5.9 trillion total pension assets for the payment of 25 percent loss of employment benefit to 177,000 contributors who lost their jobs or stopped working before the retirement age as stipulated by the 2014 Pension Act.

He however said non payment of Accrued Rights by federal government to PenCom for onward transfer to government workers’ Retirement Savings Accounts has posed a big challenge to the CPS.

“Government’s indebtedness to its workers since 2004, has posed challenge to the smooth operations of the CPS. The arrangement was that their pension rights should be constituted into a bond and that at least 5 per cent of the workers’ monthly wage bill be paid into a sinking fund account set up in CBN but this has not been done and this has affected the regularity of the scheme’s funding “, he stated.

Loyinmi said the Commission has been making efforts to ensure payment of the Accrued Rights, disclosing that PenCom has engaged some agencies of government to this effect having visited and made its presentations to them.

Also speaking, Head of Micro Pension Department of the Commission, Mr. Polycarp  Anyanwu, said the Commission has done reasonable work in the preparation and release of  micro pension scheme guideline and pilot scheme for the self employed.

He said the micro pension is for the self employed in the lower, middle and upper income class, adding that in designing the scheme, the Commission will ensure that it takes care of the above three categories of income earners.

He appealed to Nigerians to be optimistic in their view of the success of the micro pension scheme adding that it will be easy and pleasurable for them and it would work because Nigeria as a country has people that can contribute to its success.

“The target is the self employed, that is farmers, hair-dressers, okada riders and every other self employed person that has legal means of livelihood” Loyinmi stated.

He said that out of a total 58.7 million adults in Nigeria, there are potential 38 million contributors that will emerge from the informal sector when the micro pension scheme fully takes off.

He said capturing them into the pension scheme has become necessary because the informal sector constitutes 70 percent of Nigeria’s total’s total work force and that these are not covered by any form of structured pension scheme.

According to Anyanwu, micro pension scheme has become the trend in the global arena but Nigeria will not adopt any foreign model of the scheme because what works in one clime may not work elsewhere.

“In Kenya, they work through associations, in India, they use it as a form of social security where government tries to encourage the people”, he explained.

He said in implementing the micro pension scheme, PenCom, would simplify the registration process, make it flexible and capture the operators through their trade unions and associations and when the scheme takes off, the commission targets 250,000 contributors to enrol into the scheme in the first six months.