PenCom to establish working population database

National Pension Commission (PENCOM) is set to establish working population database so as to ascertain the numbers of workers in both public and private sectors of the nation.


The Director General, PENCOM, Mr Mahammad Ahmad, said the commission is collaborating with other government agencies in achieving full compliance by the workers.
According to him, a database of working population would be established to ensure that employers covered by the CPS are implementing the scheme for their employees.
He said effort is being made to promote informal sector participation in the scheme adding hat incentives would be worked out for the employees in the sector and relevant agencies of government would be contacted to provide all necessary support needed to ensure compliance by the sector.
“Compliance levels are expected to improve due to the renewed efforts by the commission and the support of the various tiers of government”.
According to him, the numbers of contributors and hence the size of contributions would increase thus more funds would be available for payment of retirement benefits as well as investment and national development saying PENCOM would continue to work with other regulatory agencies to ensure the development of alternative investment securities for pensions funds.
He stressed that particular attention would be given to the development of corporate bond market and introduction of multi-funds saying in order to ensure successful implementation of these programmes, research capabilities would be enhanced in investment and risk management,
“The capacity of the industry to achieve maximum efficiency would be developed and intensive enlightenment campaigns to further improve the level of understanding of the reform and achieve full compliance would be undertaken.”, he said.
The PENCOM boss stressed that various strategies were implemented to ensure compliance with the PRA 2004 by both private and self-funded public sector organisations some of which are public enlightenment, mailing of compliance letters to identified eligible organisations, on-site inspection of employers, collaboration with regulatory and professional bodies and application of regime of sanctions.
He said the future of the pension industry depends on the collective efforts of government and other stakeholders in term of consistent policies that would create an enabling environment for pension fund assets to create value for the contributors and the Nigerian economy.
Source:http://www.vanguardngr.com/