Aremu Declear N6.5trillion pension fund not enough for retirees in future

Chairman of the Interim Management Committee (IMC) of First Guarantee Pension Limited (FGPL), one of the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs); Comrade Issa Aremu, has challenged the in-coming leadership of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) to scale up enrolment of Nigerians in the informal sector, saying that the N6.5trillion pension fund must be grown to meet the income adequacy of retirees in future.

Briefing the press in Abuja on recent happenings in the sector, the labour leader charged both the Acting Director General of PenCom, Mrs. Aisha Dahir-Umar and the DG designate, Dikko Aliyu Abdulrahman, to build on the gains recorded by the past Directors General, especially the immediate past; Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu; who grew the fund from N2.9 trillion in 2012 to over N6.5trillion.

According to him, “The 6.5 trillion Naira funds contributed so far can hardly meet the future income adequacy of retirees, which underscores the need for an intensified effort on the part of the incoming leadership.  The major challenge is to ensure that all retirees under the scheme are paid their benefits as at when due.”

He reasoned that the over 6 million workers already captured under the contributory pension scheme was a far cry from the over 80 million potential work force in Nigeria; and therefore called for the roll out of the Micro Pension Scheme, which framework had been initiated by the immediate past DG.

Aremu further said that PenCom under the last leadership shored up the Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) subscriptions from 5.39million to 6.89million within a period of three years.