Nigeria’s pension fund assets rose to N12.66trn as of June 30, the National Pension Commission (PenCom) disclosed.
Gatekeepers News reports that the PenCom Director-General, Aisha Dahir-Umar made the disclosure at the 2021 Journalists Workshop on Monday in Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.
The workshop was themed: Positioning the Pension Industry in the Post COVID-19 Era.
She also noted that contributors under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) hit the 9.38m mark.
Represented by Peter Aghahowa, Head of Corporate Communication, Dahir-Umar noted that the steady increase trajectory confirmed the commission’s determining investment outlook of ensuring the safety of pension fund assets.
She promised pension stakeholders that the implementation of the CPS remained on course.
The PenCom boss further stated that the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic required a review of business methods across various organisations, which made it necessary for the commission to intensify technology innovation.
“COVID-19 has engendered socio-economic disruptions of the entire global order, with multifarious challenges in conducting hitherto routine activities.
“It was, therefore, imperative for the commission to deepen technological innovation to navigate through the challenges imposed by the pandemic.
“The most recent technological innovation introduced by the commission is the in-house designed and developed online enrolment application.
“The application has capabilities to register, verify and enrol prospective retirees of Treasury-Funded Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs),” she said.
The PenCom boss noted that the deployment of the new application has prevented the mass gathering of people while enhancing convenience for prospective retirees through a seamless enrolment process.
She stated that another notable technological innovation by the commission was the design and deployment of the Retirement Savings Account (RSA) Transfer System (RTS), which was launched in November 2020.
Gatekeepers News reports that she stressed that public awareness was one of the five strategic focus areas currently sought by the commission.
“This is considered germane considering that 17 years after the pension reform in Nigeria, there still exists a knowledge gap on the CPS.
“Consequently, the commission is committed to reinvigorating its public enlightenment and education drive in order to address this challenge,” she said.
Other strategic focus areas of PenCom, according to her, include the resolution of outstanding pension liabilities of the Federal Government; portfolio diversification of pension fund investments.
The PenCom boss mentioned improvement in customer service delivery across the pension industry and unrelenting pursuit of sustainable growth of the pension industry by expanding the coverage of the CPS.
