The federal government has released a sum of N13.89 billion for the payment of accrued pension rights for employees of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) who retired in 2022.
The National Pension Commission (PenCom) disclosed this in a statement on Thursday.
According to PenCom, the accrued pension rights represent an employee’s benefits for the past years of service up to June 2004, when the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) came into effect.
Remittance process: While thanking President Muhammadu Buhari for his support and commitment to the implementation of the CPS, PenCom said:
- “Accordingly, PenCom is processing remittances into the various Retirement Savings Accounts of the affected retirees, and their Pension Fund Administrators will notify them in due course.”
Clearing backlogs: Earlier in September last year, the Director-General of PenCom, Aisha Dahir-Umar, said the federal government was yet to pay only six months of pending accrued rights of retirees under the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS).
Dahir-Umar was responding to the questions from Senators on the alleged delayed payment of pension benefits to retirees, the possibility of investing pension funds for benefit of the economy, and alleged malpractice by Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs).
- She said delayed payment of accrued rights would soon be a thing of the past as the government was making frantic efforts to clear the backlog of accrued rights.
- According to her, the government had consistently paid accrued rights in the last 17 years, saying that it only owed six months of accrued rights.
- She added that the government was paying N49 billion monthly in accrued rights in the last 17 years, adding that the federal government via Debt Management Office (DMO), was on the verge of paying off the balance of accrued rights.