Re: ‘I was shocked to be told my husband’s pension was N47’
In the said interview, the interviewee stated that “I was given a contact at the PenCom Office in Abuja who was absent at the time. I proceeded to the Accountant General’s Office. He rang the PenCom Office and spoke to a lady who said ‘right now we are dealing with money for the living. When […]
In the said interview, the interviewee stated that “I was given a contact at the PenCom Office in Abuja who was absent at the time. I proceeded to the Accountant General’s Office. He rang the PenCom Office and spoke to a lady who said ‘right now we are dealing with money for the living. When we finish that, we would come to the dead’. I asked if we will get it for Christmas, I was told no, because it has to be after budget. I was thinking that after the 2011 budget, it would materialize, but nothing did. So far we have done three screenings”.
There was a mix-up in the above assertion, the interviewee’s husband, Late Professor Ishaya Audu, worked and retired under the old Pay-as-You-go pension system. He died on 29 August, 2005 and by that he was exempted from the Contributory Pension Scheme. Therefore his pension is supposed to be handled by Pension Department in the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation. As such, she must have been referred to the Pension Department in the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation which is responsible for the payment of Late Professor Audu’s pension.
Furthermore, one of the questions asked by your reporter ‘With the recent scandals rocking the PENCOM, what would you say in the light of your experience? This question was ignorantly formulated as PenCom is not part of the recent scandals uncovered as a result of public hearing on pension administration by the Joint Committee of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The scandals, reported widely by the media, took place in some of the pension departments and the issue is being handled by the appropriate government agencies. PenCom was never a party to the pension scandals as insinuated in your interview with Mrs. Victoria Ishaya Audu. The assertion by your reporter is indeed very unfair to the National Pension Commission and has sent wrong signals to the general public, in particular contributors and retirees under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).
It is also pertinent to note that the alleged scandal in the Civilian Pension Department and the Police Pension Office is very unlikely to occur under the Contributory Pension Scheme regulated and supervised by PenCom. This is because Contributory Pension System is predicated upon structures that have adequate in-built control mechanisms to prevent such occurrences. Under the CPS, pension funds are not left with the employers or Government, they are in the Central Bank of Nigeria and are credited directly to the individual retirement Savings Accounts of the beneficiaries and neither the employer, the Commission, nor even the Pension Fund Administrators has access to withdraw money from the Retirement Savings Accounts.
In the light of the above, we implore the Weekly Trust to retract the story in its next edition with the view to putting the records straight and forestall the possible damage it will do the CPS and the National Pension Commission. We also wish to advise your reporters to always verify their information before going to press.
Emeka Onuora Head Communication, National Pension Commission