By Rosemary Onuoha
FOLLOWING the increasing  unemployment in the country as a result of the economic recession, there have been lots of requests for refund of 25 per cent of  pension contribution from the unemployed people in the pension scheme. Managing Director/Chief Executive, Sigma Pensions Limited, Mr. Dave Uduanu, whio disclosed this stated: “There are lots of requests from people that have lost jobs to access 25 percent of their pension contribution to keep body and soul together until they secure another job.”

*Mr. Dave Uduanu… In the pension industry, once someone completes the documentation, he or she would be paid within one week

The Pension Reform Act 2014 stipulates that a worker below 50 years under the Contributory Pension Scheme, CPS, who loses his or her job and does not secure another one after four months, can access 25 per cent of the pension contribution.Uduanu who made the assertion in Abuja during a capacity development programme for human resource personnel said that inadequate contribution of funding remained a major challenge in the pension industry amid the present global fiscal constraint.

Represented by the Executive Director, Technical, Mr. Ibrahim Balarabe, Uduanu said, “We can understand. Its current reality of ours, the economy is on the downturn but we’re looking forward positively but many employers are not able to pay employees contribution. For those that have and are still in business many of them have shed weight, which means if they previously had 100 employees, they now manage with thirty or forty. So it’s not the fault of those employers, it’s an economic situation, not even in Nigeria alone. And looking at what government has put in place over the years since the new administration came in, we feel positive that things will turn around very soon.”