The Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) has asked the National Assembly to probe the activities of Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) in the management of pension funds. The pensioners also called on the legislators to review the Act establishing the Pension Commission (PENCOM) to make it “more responsible and responsive to the pensioners”.

North-Central Zonal Chairman of NUP, Mr Peter Ahmodu, said in Jos that some PFAs were into “some sharp practices leading to mismanagement of pensioners’ funds”. He said that much money was being remitted to the PFAs but alleged that the monies were being “siphoned into some private accounts in the guise of investing them”.

“Pensioners can’t get their full benefits after retirement. Even when you are lucky to be paid after three or four years, you are only paid a third of the total amount.

The PFAs will tell you that they are spreading the remaining two-thirds across 18 years without your consent. If I have worked for 35 years, why should PFAs teach me how to spend my pension?”

He alleged that such discrepancies involved in the administering of pension funds led to the withdrawal of the military from PENCOM and called on relevant authorities to check such excesses.

Ahmodu suggested that the full retirement benefit of every pensioner should be paid in bulk immediately after retirement, stressing that the spread over 18 years would not allow pensioners to “do anything reasonable with such money”.

He also called on PENCOM to give the pensioners a free hand to decide what to do with their pensions, and decried a situation where young officials would be made to “teach their parents” what to do with their money.