Non-remittance of pensions: PenCom to involve enforcement agencies to ensure compliance

As a last resort to ending non-remittance of retirement savings, the Pension Commission (PenCom) has said it is set to involve appropriate enforcement agencies, as this is seen as a financial crime.

It is said that some employers deduct the compulsory contributory retirement savings, known as pensions, from salaries of employees but fail to remit to the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs).

“Some people have made deductions from their salaries and have not been remitted into their Retirement Savings Account (RSA).

“We are calling out to those people and we are going to work with the appropriate law enforcement agencies because it is a financial crime to take money out of an employees salary and do not then remit it to his RSA. It is something we take seriously,” Chinelo Anohu Amazu, director-general, National Pension Commission, said at the Presidential Villa, Wednesday.

Amazu spoke with journalists after leading a delegation of the Commission to brief President Muhammadu Buhari on the activities and challenges of the establishment.

The PenCom is established by the Pension Reform Act 2014 to administer, supervise and regulate all pension matters in Nigeria.

She said despite devoting a whole department to enforcement and compliance, it had also become imperative to engage the appropriate agencies to ensure total compliance.

It doesn’t mean that you have to be in a formal employment, those in the informal sector will also be brought under the scheme because they are the ones that are most in need of a retirement saving plan, Amazu said.

Non-compliance is one of the major challenges the commission continues to face, Amazu told reporters she had informed the president.

The president, she said, directed the commission to work with the vice president to get the National Economic Council (NEC) to ensure that all the states governments are in full compliance with remittance laws, as soon as possible.

Currently, there are 6.637 million retirement savings account holders on the scheme nationwide, Amazu said, adding that this was only 11 percent working population and showed great opportunity for more people to get on the scheme.

On not being able to access benefits after retirement, she said the president had directed for an immediate resolution, as this was not an ideal situation.

As part of the reason for the delay, Amazu said, “our budget is not as robust as we would wish, we have dwindling resources and every sector of the economy is affected.”