By Rosemary Onuoha

Pension Fund Administrators paid N4.97 billion to 12,772 Retirement Savings Account, RSA, holders who were disengaged from their jobs in the first quarter of 2018.

The beneficiaries were the RSA holders who under the age of 50 years disengaged from work and were unable to secure another job within four months of disengagement. The money represents 25 percent of the total balance in their RSAs.

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According to a report of the National Pension Commission, PenCom, for the first quarter of 2018 (Q1’18), the beneficiaries of this form of payment since inception of the Contributory Pension Scheme, CPS, in 2004 is numbering 263,093 and they have received a total of N87.54 billion.

Further analysis showed that the private sector accounted for 95.6 percent while the public sector accounted for 4.4 percent.

The report also stated that PenCom approved payment of N8 billion as death benefits to the beneficiaries of 2,173 deceased employees during the quarter under review.

The total number of deceased employees from both public and private sectors is 47,682 and the amount paid during the quarter increased total payments of death benefits to N146.90 billion, including life insurance.

The report further stated that total number of retirees currently receiving their pensions under the Programmed Withdrawal, PW, increased by 3.79 percent to 180,783 in Q1’18  from 174,186 in the previous quarter.

A sectorial breakdown shows that 51.6 percent of those that retired under the PW during the quarter were from the public sector while retirees from the private sector accounted for 48.4 percent.

The sum of N19.25 billion was paid to 6,597 retirees as lump sum and N0.25 billion as monthly programmed withdrawals during the quarter.

Meanwhile, PenCom approved a total of 3,280 applications for life annuity during the quarter, bringing the total number of retirees receiving their retirement benefits through the annuity plan to 51,819.

The 3,280 retirees received N3.61 billion as lump sum payment and paid annuity premium of N17.96 billion to insurance companies cumulating to a total of N63.91 billion and N259.58 billion as lump sum and annuity payments respectively.

The retirees were receiving average monthly annuity of N2.7 billion as at the end of March, 2018.