Trustfund Pensions has urged employers of labour to ensure compliance with the National Pension Commission directives on Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) for their employees.
The fund also told employers to frequently interact with their employees’ Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) to be up to date on happenings within the industry.
Speaking during an interactive meeting with employers in Abuja, Trustfund Pensions compliance officer, Fakunlu Christopher, said the PFAs expressed concern at the level of uncredited contributions.
He said in an attempt to rectify the uncredited contributions, it was discovered that the problems emanated from the employers, and the meeting would enable them engage with the employers on how to resolve the issue
Christopher said the essence of the meeting was to engage with the employers to let them know what their obligations under the Pensions Act so they can comply.
“They deduct contributions from their employees, remit it to us as PFAs of those employees. And when they send it, some of them don’t provide schedules of contributions. It is like when you go to a bank and you make payment at the desk to a teller and you don’t provide account number, the teller cannot do anything. It is the same for us in the pension industry. If you make contributions for an employee and you do not provide schedule as to who and who should be credited, we will not be able to credit it.
“We have seen when seen instances where employers will give you schedule for one million naira and the money paid into the bank is five hundred thousand naira, so you are unable to match the schedule with the contributions that has been made. So we bring them here to highlight this issues to them and also make recommendations to them on how to correct this anomalies so that when we receive the money, we are able to process and credit and continue to create value for the owners of the fund,” he said.
The Fund further said there had been improvements in compliance with the CPS, but added “there is room for more improvement.”
“PENCOM is doing a lot to ensure that states key into the CPS. A lot of states have keyed into it. Some of them are in different stages of compliance. We know that there are rooms for improvements even for states that have complied. What we have seen so far is a great improvement,” he said.
