PenCom, BPP and stakeholders’ trust
Some recent events and developments should prove simultaneously instructive and rejuvenating for Nigeria’s pension industry. The situations being referenced undoubtedly bear consequence on the element of trust which is the most vital asset for such a sensitive and crucial sector of the economy. The matters and references under focus here include the on-going public hearing […]
Some recent events and developments should prove simultaneously instructive and rejuvenating for Nigeria’s pension industry. The situations being referenced undoubtedly bear consequence on the element of trust which is the most vital asset for such a sensitive and crucial sector of the economy.
The matters and references under focus here include the on-going public hearing of the Ad Hoc Committee of the House of Representatives investigating the activities of the erstwhile presidential task force on pension reforms. The inquiry is supposed to cover the activities of the task force from 2010 to the time of its dissolution and any other successor agency. Then there is the initial response by the Acting Director General of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) Aisha Dahir-Umar to a recent invitation of the Economic and Media Forum of the Global Africa Journalists Association in which she remarked thus: ‘’I think that the entire pension industry in Africa’s largest economy is ready to embrace world class standard practices. But particularly for us at PenCom, we are determined to become a point of proud and envious reference in pension matters internationally’’. Then thirdly and equally significant was the recent report that the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) rejected the plan by PenCom to cancel the acquisition process for the building of a Pension Administration System (PAS) estimated at 3.9 billion naira.
The new zeal of some leaders of the various sub-sector in the nation’s pension industry can only be catalyzed and strengthened with encouraging actions of the apex Nigeria’s political leadership, the legal institutions and parallel regulatory and supervisory agencies. The current matter involving the BPP and PenCom is thus organically sprouted in the environment where reform is gaining eminence in pension management. The action of the BPP definitely calls for clarity beyond the curious veil of hazy technicalities. For the sake of objectivity, one seeks to know if the BPP as an agency which is supposed to ensure probity and ethics in the process of procurement attempting to stifle a rigorous review of a contract by the same agency that initiated and owns the project. Is there something smelly and sinister in the contention by the BPP that the commission cannot review an approximately hefty 4-billion-naira project if PenCom believes that there could be some substantial reduction in the cost of the same project? A considerable number of experts in the pension industry insist that the same project could be executed for about 70 per cent less of the approximate 4 billion naira.
Consequent on her appointment as the Acting DG of PenCom, Aisha Dahir-Umar, decided to conduct a careful review of the various on-going projects of the agency. It is unquestionable from various informed sources in the industry that the metrics of her review consideration were prudence in the budgetary estimates of such projects and the quantifiable added value of such endeavors to the statutory obligations of PenCom and particularly the interest of the stakeholders. The acting DG has staked her profile as a management scholar and accomplished administrator in this decision-making process. It was under such consideration that Dahir-Umar cancelled the annual one-billion naira guzzling jamboree tagged World Africa Pension Summit. It was evident that her predecessor and the senior staff who ran the programme could not provide any credible memo or evaluation to justify the fiesta which had held consecutively in 2014, 2015 and 2016. It was clearly a drain on PenCom’s resources and unquestionably a stratagem for other purposes. DG Dahir-Umar is acting exactly as she remarked in her response to the invitation by the Economic and Media Forum of the global journalists’ association that, ‘’Nigerian pension industry must be awakened to global standards of ethics and transparency and thereby engender the trust and confidence of stakeholders in the industry’’.
Other projects under her (Dahir-Umar) predecessor (Mrs Chinelo Anohu-Amazu) which has drawn the scrutiny of ethics and transparency groups include the establishment of a 2-billion naira PenCom TV and the acquisition of an approximate 1-billion-naira prostate cancer treatment machine. The medical equipment has reportedly been gathering dust and has also been inoperable since it was procured. It will be enlightening to know if the BPP gave certificates of “no objection” to the acquisition of the equipment involved in the aforementioned projects, and if so, what tests in prudence and transparency were the projects subjected to?
Along the same trajectory of thought, I propose that the stakeholders particularly the contributing workers are entitled to know the crux of the matter in the current contention over a 4-biilion naira project between PenCom and the BPP. And this is the matter, PenCom under previous D-G Chinelo Anohu-Amazu had selected a foreign company to build a Pension Administration System (PAS) estimated at 4-billion naira for the agency. But the current acting DG Dahi-Umar had requested that the BPP should allow for a review of the contract citing unduly high estimates and security concerns. Informed watchers of the industry suggest that the project could be executed for 70 per cent less the projected 4-billion naira as proposed by Anohu-Amazu’s administration.
But the BPP insisted that the project must not be delayed for any reason despite the legitimate questions crying out for clarification. Why is the BPP engaging in bureaucratic acrobatics and beclouding a serious issue with arcane language-stubbornly taking a position as if the bureau’s certificate of “no objection’’ were a holy writ that cannot be subjected to common sense evaluation? Is the BPP speaking for the foreign company regarding the cost of the project? One should believe that the bureau has no other motives in this matter, the BPP should therefore let the contracting firm directly respond to the question of over blown estimates. More intriguing is the fact that there’s no prohibiting provision which prevents PenCom from reviewing or cancelling the contract, except for the curious zealousness of BPP. Based on the reverent nature of the task for which it obligated, prudence and transparency should be the permeating mantra of BPP and not the current perception or misconception that the bureau is projecting in the current PenCom controversy. BPP must allow one of the agency at the summit of the nation’s pension industry to undertake necessary reforms and initiatives for the accelerated growth of the sector.
In casting an overall look at the three dimensions of the focus of this discussion- if the Ad Hoc committee of the House of Representatives can send a no nonsense signal for the regime of supervision in the pension industry, if the new leadership at PenCom stays dedicated to its words and actions regarding ethics and professionalism and if such agencies as the BPP will allow new ideas like those of Dahir-Umar to flourish – then we might to be coming close to declaring the dawn of a new era in the nation’s pension sector and a rejuvenating guarantee for the life-savings of ordinary Nigerian workers.
Prof Onoh-Stevenson writes from Edinburgh, Scotland.