By ROSEMARY ONUOHA

Over 10,000 contributors to the new pension scheme who have retired as well as some that will soon be due for retirement have their funds trapped with their various Pension Fund Administrators, PFAs.

This is due to the fact that most PFAs cannot locate many of such contributors due to death or wrong addresses while majority are yet to commence the necessary documentation regarding their pension entitlements.

It will be recalled that the number of PFAs in the country came down to 18 from initial figure of 28 after the mandatory recapitalsaition exercise by the National Pension Commission, PenCom.

Meanwhile, according to Pension Fund Operators, PenOp, there are   so contributors whose retirement many benefits have been remitted by their employers but are yet to attend the PFA documentation exercise.

Lamenting this development, Chairman of PenOp, Mr. Dave Uduanu, said that the situation is posing a serious challenge to operators because announcing the names of such people might compel unscrupulous elements to come and claim their entitlements.

Uduanu said “We have contributors to the new pension scheme that have died and their next of kin have not shown up.  If somebody goes and say Mr. X is dead and I am looking for the next of kin, his whole village people might turn up and say ‘ah the man has five million here and we are suffering. They might kill the genuine next of kin so that he does not show up.”

Stating that the development is an industry issue, Uduanu charged next-of- kin of contributors to the new pension that have died to show up to their PFAs so as to be able to claim their entitlements.

“So if there is anybody that has lost anybody who is working, the chances are that the dead person has a PFA. The relative should find out where the PFA is and go there and complete the documentation. Next-of-kin are normally the spouse but we find out that most people use their children and the thing is that if the child is below 18, he needs a legal guardian,” Uduanu said.

“So the woman might be scrambling and asking ‘how do I train these children’ meanwhile, the husband left money but the woman was not named,” he said.

To prevent such occurrence happening on regular basis, Uduanu advised that people should procure wills so that when they die, the PFAs can dispose off the benefits according to the will.

Uduanu also stated ‘Another challenge we are facing is that we have people that have retired, have relocated from a place where we use to know them to a place where we can no longer reach them.”

“So if you retire from Kaduna and you relocate to my village for instance, there is no Etisalat in my village, the number we know you with is Etisalat. We call your employer, he said the man has retired and have paid him whatever is due to him and he is gone. But the PFA cannot reach him,” Uduanu said.

Uduanu said that in the cases mentioned, the PFAs have the monies of the contributors intact but many of them cannot be reached.