States not implementing contributory pension scheme — PenCom

It has been revealed that most states across the six geopolitical zones in the country are yet to fully implement the federal government’s Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), according to a report by the National Pension Commission (PenCom).

According to the report obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Tuesday, only six states and the FCT had fully implemented CPS with regular and up-to-date remittance of pension contributions, establishment of pension bureau and enactment of pension law.

The report, signed by PenCom spokesman, Peter Aghohowa, indicated that the six states which had fully keyed into the CPS as at September 2019 were Kaduna, Anambra, Ekiti, Ondo, Edo and Delta.

North-central
In the North-cenral zone, only FCT had established pension bureau and was up-to-date with remittance of pension contributions, while Benue, Kogi and Nasarawa which had enacted CPS laws had no pension bureaus in place.

North-east
Five states in the North-east zone, comprising Borno, Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe and Taraba, were yet to commence remittance of pension contributions while Yobe was still operating Defined Benefits Scheme.

North-west
In the North-west zone, only Kaduna had fully implemented CPS with regular and up-to-date remittance of pension contributions, establishment of pension bureau, registration of employees with PFAs and consistent funding of accrued rights with five per cent of total monthly bill.

Of all the North-west states, only Katsina neither enacted CPS law nor established pension bureau, while Jigawa and Kebbi which had pension bureaus, were only remitting portions of the pension contributions.

South-east, South-west
In the South-east zone, PenCom reports that except for Anambra which was fully complying with the implementation of the CPS scheme, others such as Abia, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo had not keyed into the scheme.

The commission stated that in the South-west zone, Ekiti and Ondo were remitting pension contributions, Ogun and Osun had huge backlogs, Lagos did not provide information on its remittance, while Oyo was yet to commence remittance of pension contributions.

South-south
In the South-south, Edo and Delta states were up-to-date in their pension contributions, while Rivers and Bayelsa states were yet to commence remittance of pension contributions.

It stated that in Rivers, contributions made under the repealed law were being refunded to exempted employees, while Akwa Ibom and Cross River states did not even have a CPS law in place.

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