Who owns Premium Pension anyway?

To say that there has been a deliberate attempt to misinform the public on the regulatory intervention of the National Pension Commission (PenCom), to save the First Guarantee Pension Limited (FGPL), a Pension Fund Administrator (PFA), is to state the obvious. Leading this campaign through frivolous petitions, interviews, and proxies, the main one claims that […]

To say that there has been a deliberate attempt to misinform the public on the regulatory intervention of the National Pension Commission (PenCom), to save the First Guarantee Pension Limited (FGPL), a Pension Fund Administrator (PFA), is to state the obvious. Leading this campaign through frivolous petitions, interviews, and proxies, the main one claims that PenCom sacked the Board of Directors, in defiance of court orders and to enable the Director General of PenCom to transfer ownership of FGPL to another PFA. 

On the other hand, PenCom, which stands by this action carried out in 2011 by the previous administration under M. K. Ahmad, contends that it sacked the Board of FGPL and set up an Interim Management Committee (IMC) pursuant to Sections 88 (2), 20(i), and 21(j) of the Pension Reform Act 2004 (as it was then). It maintains it was consequent upon the findings of the various routine and special examinations undertaken by it on FGPL in the years 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, which exposed tenacious infractions and unsafe corporate governance practices that put the PFA at serious risk.

The board was sacked and an Interim Management Committee (IMC) empanelled by PenCom to run the PFA in line with Sections, pending the resolution of the disputes. But Duru sued PenCom, in a futile bid to turn back the hand of the clock, thus opening the floodgate of litigations that informed the continued running of the FGPL by an IMC. Curiously, the same adversary has gone about petitioning and granting interviews, claiming that PenCom has deliberately kept the IMC in place for over five years for ulterior motives.

One of them, Hon. Chidi Duru, said in interview and petitions that PenCom’s DG, Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, has deliberately retained the IMC at the FGPL in the bid to transfer the PFA’s assets to Premium Pension, where he claims the DG’s family holds a “controlling” share. But this is a blatant lie and cheap blackmail. And it necessitates the question: Who owns Premium Pensions? 

Facts sourced from House Committee on Public Petitions show that Premium Pension has a diverse shareholder base, consisting of 48 individuals and corporate bodies, going by its latest shareholders structure (2012). While there is no known law in Nigeria that restrains any individual from investing in PFAs merely because his or her relation invested or works in the pension industry, so long as the person scales the fit and proper person test by the National Deposit Insurance Corporation and the security agencies, the facts even show that among the highest shareholders of Premium Pension is Zaina Nigeria Limited, which holds 59,654,966 (9.8%). Victor Anohu, holds a paltry 1.61% shares bought by the family at the formation of Premium Pension in 2005. 

How 1.61% constitutes a “controlling” or “substantial” share of Premium Pension, as variously claimed by Duru in his eccentric propagandas and frivolous petitions, is for the discerning members of the public to judge. Besides, this ownership structure of the PFA (verifiable from the Premium Pension’s company file at the Corporate Affairs Commission) has not changed since 2012; hence it predates Mrs. Anohu-Amazu’s appointment as Acting DG in December 2012 and substantive DG in 2014.

Also, Pension Reform Act 2014) clearly spells out in Sections 24(h)&(i) and 98(2)(a), circumstances where PenCom can order the transfer of pension assets under the management of any licensed PFA. This includes where it believes that the assets are endangered.

Allegations by Duru, on transfer of FGPL to Premium Pensions, qualify only as sheer mischievous conjecture about the powers conferred upon the Commission by PRA 2014 to transfer pension assets from a PFA whenever there is a threat to the pension assets. 

All PFAs are currently doing so well under the strict regulatory control of PenCom, such that they have become the beautiful brides attracting rich suitors in terms of foreign investors, who want to buy into them. PenCom should continue on the path of strict regulation, which President Muhammadu Buhari not only hailed at the recent World Pension Summit in Abuja, but indeed gave a marching order to continue the crackdown on violators of the laws and regulations. 

Dankade, a pensioner, writes from Gombe.