PenCom DG, Aisha Dahir- Umar

By Ngozi Onyeakusi—The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has disclosed that the
Federal Government has paid a total of N980.18bn to retirees of treasury funded Ministries, Departments and Agencies from the inception of the Contributory Pension Scheme in 2004 to December 2021.
According to the Director-General of the  Commission, Aisha Dahir-Umar, who made the disclosure  in the 2021  pension industry report noted, “In addition, the Federal Government continued to fund the Retirement Benefits Bond Redemption Fund account. With the release of N100.29bn for the payment of accrued rights to retirees of treasury funded MDAs, this brought the total amount released by the Federal Government into the RBBRF account, from inception to 31 December 2021, to N980.18bn.” According to her, the most significant development in the pension industry in 2021 was the successful reduction of outstanding pension liabilities of the Federal Government under the Contributory Pension Scheme. She said PenCom obtained presidential approval for N159.46bn to defray some aspects of outstanding pension liabilities of the Federal Government under the CPS. Consequently, she said, N40.55bn, being the outstanding accrued rights of 6,282 retirees and 2,329 deceased employees, was paid during the year.
The Chairman, PenCom, Dr Oluremi Oni, added that  during the year under review, the agency pursued increased diversification of pension fund portfolios by ramping up efforts aimed at ensuring sustained investment of pension fund in structured infrastructure projects that met the stringent requirements as enshrined in the regulation for the investment of pension fund assets.
He said, “We are glad to report that out of the N8.77tn or 65.35 per cent of the total pension assets under management invested in Federal Government securities, pension funds directly invested N118.31bn in the Sukuk bond issued by the Federal Government to finance road projects nationwide, N59.32bn was invested in FGN green bond, while N14.30bn was invested in agency bonds issued by the Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company.”
He said although PenCom’s efforts at diversifying investments of pension funds and hedging against inflation had gradually began to yield results, efforts were ongoing to ensure that the annualised average rates of return of pension funds across RSA and legacy funds were above headline inflation rates.