•NPAN, NGE, NUJ, PenCom to hold parley over compliance

By Victor Ahiuma-Young & Rosemary Iwunze

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has raised the alarm over widespread non-compliance with the Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2014 by media organisations in Nigeria, stating that newspaper owners have failed to remit over N720 million deducted from journalists’ salaries.

Speaking during a courtesy visit to the President of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria, NPAN, Mr. Kabiru Yusuf, in Abuja, the Director General of PenCom, Ms. Omolola Oloworaran, described the huge unremitted deductions as deeply troubling and called for urgent collaboration between PenCom and newspaper proprietors to enforce compliance across the sector.

PenCom in a statement acknowledged the significant role of the media in shaping public discourse and said it is disheartening that many organisations within the industry are failing to meet a fundamental obligation to their employees.

According to the statement, the Director General noted that the PRA 2014 mandates all employers to remit pension contributions for their employees monthly, within seven days of salary payment, lamenting that “PenCom’s investigations show that many newspaper houses have ignored this obligation, with arrears now totalling over N720 million.”

Oloworaran told NPAN that PenCom is not currently seeking to penalise non-compliant organisations but prefers a collaborative approach to achieving sector-wide compliance.

She noted that the commission has been engaging employers across industries and recently held discussions with the Nigerian Press Council, NPC, to drive awareness and improve compliance in newspaper organisations.

While acknowledging the overall poor compliance within the industry, the Director General singled out Daily Trust for commendation, describing the paper as a “leading example” for consistently meeting its pension obligations since 2015.

In response, NPAN President Kabiru Yusuf acknowledged the pension compliance issues facing newspaper organisations in Nigeria but urged PenCom to take into account the dire financial state of the media industry.

He explained that many newspapers in Nigeria are struggling to pay staff salaries, let alone make pension contributions, and that even among those managing to stay afloat, there is often reluctance to part with funds for statutory payments such as taxes and pensions.

Yusuf welcomed PenCom’s engagement efforts and proposed a broader industry dialogue through the Nigerian Press Organisation, NPO,—a coalition that includes NPAN, the Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE, and the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ..

He suggested that PenCom participate in an expanded stakeholder meeting in Lagos later this year, where the challenges of compliance and potential solutions could be jointly addressed.

Ms. Oloworaran agreed to the proposal, expressing hope that such a forum would represent a meaningful step toward sustainable pension reform compliance in the media industry.

“We are not focused on being punitive, even though the law allows us to impose sanctions. That is not our primary approach. We believe we can work together to get media houses to make the necessary contributions toward the financial security of their workers,” the Director General said.

The statement added that the meeting marked a renewed effort by PenCom to hold employers in the media sector accountable and ensure compliance with the PRA 2014.