By IVOR TAKOR

Section 30 of the Pension Reform Act 2004 established the Civil Service Pension Department; the Military Pension Department; the Police Pension Department; the Customs, Immigration and Prisons Pension Department and the Security Agencies Pension Department and called the departments, Pension Transitional Arrangement Departments.

Apart from the Act providing that the Departments shall on a monthly basis render returns of comprehensive list of pension-able staff, pensioners, deceased pensioners and their next of kin to the National Pension Commission, the Act also provides in Section 30(4) that these departments shall operate under the rules, regulations and directives made by the Commission from time to time.

Section 35(1) provides that the Commission shall regulate and supervise the activities of the Departments to ensure compliance with the Act. However, the National Assembly has amended the Act to remove Military and Security Agencies from the Contributory Pension Scheme.

However, What we have not confirmed is if removing them from the Contributory Pension Scheme also legally provides that the pension administration of these sectors of the public service are exempted from regulation.

The above provisions effectively put the Pension Departments, with the exception of the Military and Security Agencies Department under the Commission.

Consequently, any other arrangement put in place to run the Pension Transitional Arrangement Departments such as the Pension Task Force under the leadership of Alhaji Abdulrasheed Maina, without the involvement of the Commission will be an act that is wallowing in illegality and those that establish them are promoters of illegality, and should be called to account for such illegality.

It is high time the executive and legislative arms of government stopped these illegal acts.

The key success factor in the operation of the National Pension Commission is the quality of its human resources: the Commission has a competent staff and members who are not draw exclusively from the existing bureaucracy. The Commission has been able to attract and retain good professionals with expertise in finance, accounting, actuarial sciences, information technology, law and business management etc.

The National Pension Commission through its Inspectorate and Technical divisions has been performing effectively in its regulatory duties in the pension industry. This has been attested to by awards given to it by Thisday Newspaper as the Regulator of the year 2008.

In the same year, the Leadership Newspaper also gave it the Regulator of the year award.

Kayode Komolafe in an article titled “Pension: A Matter of Social Protection” in Thisday Newspaper of Wednesday October 29, 2008 rightly captured it that “Ahmad has so far led a team that shows a lot of passion in discharging regulatory, monitoring and oversight functions to make the sector work”.

According to him, “we are talking of what happens to people’s savings towards their retirement”. He stated that pension fund, is not the kind of fund to be put mindlessly at the disposal of speculators and buccaneers whose laissez faire understanding of capitalism is turning every N20 to N40 overnight.

It could never have been better put as he did, when he further stated that if there is one sector where there should be a firm resolve towards regulation, it is the pension industry. According to him the social sensitivity of what is involved deserves no less.

To put an end to the mind bugging fraud taking place in the Pension Transitional Departments, the provisions of the Pension Reform Act 2004 should be obeyed and complied with. The Departments should be placed under the supervision of the National Pension Commission in strict compliance with the law.

Furthermore, while we at the Centre have no intention of revisiting the issue of the removal of Military and Security Agencies from the Contributory Pension Scheme, because we believe that in view of the nature of their duties, the government should fully take responsibility of their retirement benefits, we are however convinced and align with the school of thought that believe and are advocating that the administration of such public funds should be regulated as no financial institution can be self-regulated.

In conclusion therefore, we at the Centre are of the view that the Commission should be allowed to regulate all sectors of the pension industry, no matter the types of benefits they provide to their members, in line with international best practices. It is only this independent regulation that will minimise if not totally put a stop to the fraud that is pervasive in pension administration of the Pension Transitional Arrangements Departments.