World Pension Summit and Nigerian pensioners

The African version of the World Pension Summit takes off in Abuja today. The summit is essentially a collaboration between the Hague-based World Pension Summit and the principal stakeholders of the pension industry in Nigeria.

The theme of the summit is “Building Sustainable Pension Systems in Africa”. The summit is essentially a build-up on an earlier one which was held in the self-same city of Abuja. The sub-themes which will constitute the kernel of the discourse at the plenary sessions include investment, infrastructure, financing real estate, and other pension-related matters.

Evidently, the pension summit will also provide the opportunity for the cross-fertilisation of ideas. In this way, best practices as they relate to pension matters in one social formation can easily be replicated in another. For instance, no less a person than the director-general of the National Pension Commission (PENCOM), Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, revealed that not much has been achieved in the area of micro-pension plans whereas, by contrast, advances have been made by countries like China and Kenya in this area. It is therefore hoped that Nigeria will take something away from such plans and replicate same here.

It is also noteworthy that there are plans to introduce African Pension Awards, with a view to appreciating features like innovation, excellence and commitment to the development of pensions in the continent. This is a very noble of objective that has the capacity to ensure better service-delivery in this critical area of our national life and the entire African continent.

However, we are concerned by the fact that the lofty depositions of Anohu-Amazu have virtually nothing to say on what can be called the sociological implications of phenomenon. Our specific reference here is to the plight of Nigerian pensioners. Many of these senior citizens continue to wait till eternity in order to access their pension benefits.

Incidentally, Eric Eden, co-founder of the ‘World Pension Summit, The Netherlands’, appeared to have appreciated this perennial and human problem in pension administration when he addressed the need to build trust, transparency and accountability so as to alleviate poverty among retirees in the world. Although Eden’s thrust was generic, his assertions have a lot of relevance for Nigerian pensioners.

On this note, we make bold to say that Nigerian pensioners continue to be very vulnerable. Unlike in other countries where pension benefits are reviewed regularly in consonance with subsisting living conditions and realities, such is hardly done here. Even when the revision takes place, it is often tardy and characterised by the non-payment of outstanding arrears. A clear case in point here is that till date, pensioners under the old pension scheme are yet to be paid over 50 months arrears of their revised pension benefits.

Of course, we are not unmindful of the fact that this particular and outstanding situation is not the immediate responsibility of PENCOM, which is mainly responsible for pensioners under the defined contribution scheme. Yet, since the Pensions Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) has become a sub-set of PENCOM, it will be useful for PENCOM to lend its voice to this critical issue of outstanding arrears of Federal Government pensioners.

Therefore, it is on this more relevant and compelling note that we call on PTAD to ensure that all the outstanding benefits of pensioners are paid to them soonest. One way of ensuring this is to see to it that these benefits are captured in the 2016 budget.

Meanwhile, what has been said here as regards the plight of pensioners who retired from the federal workforce is also very relevant for their counterparts who retired from the services of various states of the federation. More often than not, these categories of pensioners also have to contend with uncertainty and jeopardy as regards their due benefits.

All told, therefore, while a lot can be said for the World Pension Summit opening in Abuja today, it is equally important to stress that the deliberations should also address very seriously the need to ensure that pension benefits are constantly revised and paid promptly. Otherwise the summit will amount to nothing but a talk-shop as far as Nigerian pensioners are concerned.