N/Assembly c’ttee report okays lower PenCom DG bar…despite opposition by Mark, others

The draft report, meant for submission to the Senate and the House of Representatives, was prepared by the secretariat of the joint National Assembly Committee on Pension, Establishment and Public Service, sources in the panel told Daily Trust.It okayed reducing theyears of experience required of a PenCom DG from 20 to 15 years as proposed […]

The draft report, meant for submission to the Senate and the House of Representatives, was prepared by the secretariat of the joint National Assembly Committee on Pension, Establishment and Public Service, sources in the panel told Daily Trust.
It okayed reducing theyears of experience required of a PenCom DG from 20 to 15 years as proposed in the pension bill submitted by President Jonathan in April.
The pension bill had caused rumpus in the legislature after Daily Trust exclusively reported on May 13 that it contains a clause that seeks to lower the bar in order to pave way for the pension commission’s acting director general Chinelo Anohu-Amazu to be confirmed as substantive chief executive.
Mrs. Anohu-Amazu started her working career in 1998, meaning her years of experience fell short of the requirement by five years. She was appointed acting DG in December 2012.
During the second reading of the bill on May 28, Senate President Mark had said it was wrong to reduce the qualification requirements because this would not be in the national interest. Several other senators also spoke along similar lines.
In spite of the opposition, the draft report of the joint committee approved this reduction, sources involved with the matter told Daily Trust in Abuja.
But following a heated debate on the draft during which members nearly came to blows on July 25, the secretariat was asked to rewrite the report to include the views of stakeholders who had opposed reducing the DG’s qualification requirements.
Daily Trust learnt that when the report was tabled at the committee’s meeting on that day, many members opposed the approval of the contentious clause on reducing years of experience.
They said the draft report ignored many submissions made against the clause during the public hearing in June.
A committee member told Daily Trust: “The secretariat presented to us a draft report that completely negates the laid down procedure of report writing on bills as is being done in the National Assembly because they omitted all the presentations by stakeholders who were opposed to reducing the qualification of the PenCom DG during the public hearing.
“We therefore demanded that the report be taken back and rewritten to capture all memoranda submitted to the committee.”
A fight nearly broke out between those supporting the clause and those opposed to it during the debate on the draft.
This, a source said, was caused by “insistence of the leadership of the committee to get outright endorsement for the entire report as drafted by the secretariat but this was resisted by some senators.”
A source said the committee’s leadership had insisted that since the proposal came from the executive it should be passed.
But most members rejected this, saying the president’s submission was a mere proposal that could be tinkered with.
The committee leadership eventually caved in to demands by members for the re-write of the report to include all views canvassed by stakeholders during the public hearing on the bill in June.
The secretariat has now been directed to rewrite the report to indicate all memoranda submitted and positions taken by stakeholders on each clause and then leave an empty column where the position of committee members would be reflected.
Committee members are expected to receive the fresh report next month ahead of its presentation to the Senate and House of Representatives when they reconvene from an annual vacation on September 17.
The National Assembly joint committee comprises the relevant committees of the Senate and the House, and is headed by Senator Aloysius Etok (PDP, Akwa Ibom).
Daily Trust tried to reach Etok and his deputy Babafemi Ojudu for comments yesterday, but their phones were switched off.
‘No sense’
In the existing Pension Reform Act 2004, Section 16 says a director general for the commission must “possess professional skill and with not less than twenty years cognate experience relating to pension matters and or insurance, Actuarial Science or other related field.”
But the bill submitted to the National Assembly by President Jonathan seeks to replace this provision under a new Section 26 Subsection 2d that says: “The Director General shall possess relevant and adequate professional qualification in pension matters with 15 years cognate experience.”
When the bill came up for debate during the second reading stage in the Senate on May 28, Senator David Mark said, “That we want to reduce the years of experience of those who will manage it (PenCom) from 20 to 15 years, I think that that is not in the best interest of the nation…. We should look for people who are very experienced in the management of pension…. I don’t understand the rationale for reducing the experience of the DG from 20 to 15 (years). For me it doesn’t make sense at all.”
He added: “I think the problem we have had is that we have all sorts of rookies; people who have no idea about managing funds, not to talk of very huge pension fund go to manage our pension fund. And I think it’s a very specialised area where you cannot just wake up tomorrow morning and be appointed to manage the pension fund. You will mismanage it.”
But Mrs. Anohu-Amazu defended the proposed clause in her submission during the public hearing on the bill on June 27.
She said, “For the commissioners they are not required to have any experience and they act for the DG if he is absent. So how can you have commissioners who act as DG in the absence of the DG but they are not required to have any age qualification? So what we have is a situation where we have someone with zero years experience appointed as a commissioner. Bringing down the age qualification of the DG from 20 to 15 years and bringing up that of the commissioners to 15 years while retaining the chairman (of the board) for 20 years was the amendment we are seeking.”
“Having worked in this commission I want to submit that appointment should not be based on age qualification, and in the course of the work I have done in PenCom it is clear to me that age is not synonymous with capacity.
“A lot of the staff we have are from CBN and none of them have any age requirement. My humble submission to the committee is please follow industry best practice and global best practice, no age requirement. The president in his wisdom singularly appointed the DG and commissioners of PenCom and the Senate in its collective wisdom clears and confirms the appointments. I think that is okay, between the two of them let them decide.”