“Since assuming office, my team and I have focused on strengthening compliance, enhancing service delivery, diversifying pension assets to optimise returns, improving benefits, and expanding coverage to include more Nigerians, especially those in the informal sector.” This sums up the elongating stride of the National Pension Commission Director General Ms Omolola Oloworaran set in perspective at the 2024 PenCom Media Conference in Lagos with the theme Tech-Driven Transformation: Shaping the Pension Landscape.
Omolola Oloworaran whose presence was a first in close to a decade for a PenCom DG was applauded for making a departure from the past media blockade, stated that technology has become the backbone of transformation across all sectors, and the pension industry is no exception. “At PenCom , we have embraced this transformation wholeheartedly. Today, we have over 10.5 million contributors and oversee pension assets in excess of 21.9 trillion Naira as at October. This progress demonstrates the strength of our contributory pension system, but we are not without challenges .”
She gladly stated that before the close of the year the pension assets would exceed N22tr. The Commission she narrated, is tackling the persistent issue of delays in the payment of accrued rights. “Recently the 44 billion Naira was approved under the 2024 budget appropriation to settle accrued pension rights for retirees from March to September 3023. Moving forward, we are working with Federal Government to put in place a sustainable solution that ensures retirees receive their benefits promptly and without undue stress.”
She was confident that the next phase of engaging Federal Government would yield better results and in a sustained way put an end to the long and undue wait by those who have contributed to the development of the country in their working years and in retirement, have to have to wait unduly to get their contributions in retirement as benefits.
On the micro pension initiative she said the Commission is on the throes of rebranding to present to the public a brand that embraces all segments of human endeavours rather the current brand that tends to tilt to low income earners to the exclusion of independent high earners that could not embrace the plan because the name put them out of the catchment group. In the coming phase an all inclusive brand would sprout from the present to win the buy in of the high end earners without losing the base of the plan. “The micro pension initiative, in particular, is something we are very passionate about. It is our way of saying that no one should be left behind, no matter how small their earnings might be. Technology plays a vital role in driving this inclusion, from mobile enrollment to real-time account management to benefits administration. We intend to use technology to scale the micro-pension plan.”
Featured picture; Oguche Agudah, Executive Secretary, PenOp, Director General PenCom Ms Okolola Oloworaran and Ibrahim Buwai, Head Corporate Communications.
