Pension: Report defaulting employers, Trustfund tells employees

 

Worried over complaints of non remittance to the Contributory Pension Schemes by some employers of labour in the country, Trustfund Pension Ltd, has urged employees to report any of such employers to serve as deterrent to others.
Head of Customers Relationship Management of Trustfund Pension, Mrs Omoesiri Omoagege, while speaking at the retirees’ forum in Abuja recently, said it is punishable offence for employer not to make remittance.
“And for people that do not make remittances for their employees, we have a whole lot of that, employees report their employers to us and what do we do? We write the employers, stating what the law says, let them know it is a punishable offence and if they do not respond by making remittances, we report the cases to the National Pension Commission which has registered agency that goes around recovering this fund, and even as a penalty, shut down some businesses.”
Speaking on the significance of the retirees’ forum, Omoagege said the organisation is customer- centred with the life cycle of customers under her watch.
“Our message to pre-retirees and those who have already retired is that the contributory pension scheme has come to stay. And that Trustfund Pensions Ltd is a PFA that is customer- centred, meaning that we are interested in the life cycle of the customer and we are forever reaching out to them, giving them new information on things that happened over the years. It is an annual event and it is a way of saying that we care and thanking them also for their patronage.”
On the payment delay, she lamented that most people don’t like documentation, and this, according to her, could cause payment delay.
“We are not a country that likes documentation, our people don’t like too many forms. There are things you have to do before retirement, there is what we call pre-retirement notification, your employer will tell you, you about to retire, Trust Fund Pensions Ltd by the records, will also tell you , you are about to retire and these are the things you need to get in place.
“But just shun these notifications aside. Then for those in public sector, the federal government, there is what you call pre-retirement verification, an exercise they have to do. It will shock you that a whole lot of our retirees do not go for that pre-retirement verification and because they don’t do that, it affects when their bonds will be paid. So, they have start coming from the back whereas their mates have already gone ahead, it all has to do with documentation, I really wish our people will be matured in handling documentation.”
On retirees’ complaint over pension increment, she said, “the pension enhancement scheme, basically is for those that retired between 2007 and 2014. It is a scheme that enhances their monthly pensions, meaning there was an increment on their monthly pension and there was a template that was done by the National Pension Commission based on which the increment is applied to individual retirees savings account.
“It is not a fixed percentage, it is based on your age, based on your balance at retirement and also based on your balance as at December 2016.”
She further disclosed that “the template will calculate what figure should be used as enhancement for every retiree that qualified because the pre – qualification is that you ought to have retired from 2007 to 2014.
“There is also what we call multi-fund structure that is about to be introduced by the National Pension Commission. It is a platform that enhances the grounds on which investment are made. We have four fund, one , two, three and fund four. But happily, all our retirees will be on four which is the retiree fund. Though it has not yet been implemented, but the guidelines are out and people are giving feedbacks to National Pension Commission.”
In her remarks, Mrs Maha Longe of the Business Intelligent Unit of the organisation, urged employees and retirees to ensure proper documentation to avoid delay in payment of their pension.
She blamed inadequate documentation, misspelling, and other discrepancies as usually reasons most pensioners don’t get their monthly pension on time.
“You see, some people complaining, comparing themselves to their colleagues without finding out when their organisation pays their money to the PFA. This is because your income starts when they start paying. Some organisations, especially the private sector, even the public sector, do pay in arrears too, but this affects their income because if you don’t pay regularly as at when due, it affects. Those are issues retirees complain about.
“Moreover, we said because you are contributing doesn’t mean you should not come to your organisation or PFA to get your statement. Every time you walk in there and get your statement and look at it, if you see any discrepancy, go to your pension desk officer and rectify. You don’t have to wait until you are retiring to do this,” Longe advised.

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