By Amaka Ifeakandu
Lagos
The National Pension Commission (PenCom) said it had recovered over N11 billion between 2013 till date from erring firms through its recovering agents.
The Commissions Secretary and Legal Adviser Muhammad S. Muhammad who disclosed this in Calabar at workshop organized by the commission for finance, Pension, Insurance, Labour correspondents and Business Editors see non remittance is a criminal offence
Muhammad, said that the Commission was working with the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) to ensure all outstanding contributions were remitted. He said the issue of non remittance could come in form of when a company have not been deducting from the word go and as such, the pension liabilities will have to accumulate, adding that in a situation like that,the commissions recovering agents go in to recover both principal funds and the penalty for non remittance.
He, however, said a situation where employers will deduct money but will not remit, such a company, he said will be handed over to criminal investigating department for appropriate action.
He admitted that there had been a situations whereby the commission had handed over companies to EFCC for deducting money but fail to remit it, adding that it was mostly those transiting from the insured pension scheme into the new scheme. Explaining further, he said ” well there had been, mostly while handling issues of people transiting from the insured pension scheme into the new scheme. And you see situations where companies hold on to funds and don’t remit or you have others that will tell you that they have transferred it to insurance companies, where it is with the insurance companies, we engage the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) and they will then take appropriate measures to ensure the funds are transferred into the Pension Funds Administrators and Pension Funds Custodians (PFCs).”
He said that the primary difference between investment guidelines 2012 and draft guidelines of 2014 was the introduction of the Multi-Fund structure, a reduction in the requirement for how much pension funds may be deployed to specialized investment instruments (such as Infrastructure and Private Equity securities) located in Nigeria, introduction of non-interest bearing (Sharia compliant) investment instruments such as Sukuk.
He however said that “the Investment Strategy Committee, in addition to other functions specified in the Act, shall formulate internal investment strategies to enable compliance with this Regulation, taking into cognisance, the macro-economic environment as well as the investment objectives and risk profile of the respective PFA Funds.
This internal investment strategies, he said shall be approved by the PFA in a formal Board Meeting at least once every year or as frequently as changes occur in the macro-economic environment that may affect the pension fund assets while the Risk Management Committee shall determine the acceptable risk profile of each investment portfolio, draw up risk assessment and measurement systems, monitor their portfolio against risk tolerance limits, as well as other functions relating to risk management to be determined by the PFAs Board and the Commission, from time to time.
