The National Pension Commission says its not casting a glancing look at the plight of retirees waiting on the queue to receive their accrued rights but is committed to the payment of the backlog by the Federal Government to the retirees.
This was the pledge made by the Director General of the Commission Ms. Omolola Oloworaran at the last media chart in Lagos. The PenCom Boss speaking out of concern for those she said should be the priority for payment by the Federal Government declared, “We are looking at the lasting solution going forward and I am sure we will achieve that. We are working out an initiative with the Ministry of Finance that will come into fruition soon.”
The PenCom DG unambiguously stated, “The first set of people who should be getting paid should be the contributors under the Contributory Pension Scheme because they have actually contributed that fund. As a lasting solution we are working with government to see how they can put that measure in place to ensure that once you retire within a month you should get your benefits. That is what we are working on and I am optimistic that we should be able to achieve that.”
Ms Oloworaran said upon taken the appointment as the PenCom DG she understood that a large number of retirees have not been paid and like a new person on the job she wondered why they could not be paid. Like many waiting she had asked, why cant we pay them from what they have contributed which is a legitimate request? “Unfortunately the law does not allow PenCom to release these funds to them; the only thing we can do is to follow up with government to ensure that the accrued .”
She added that the argument against following the reasoning to pay the retirees while they wait for the accrued rights fund to be released even when the law does not prescribe is that if the Commission pays them what they have contributed, the government might not pay the outstanding and that might linger longer for years.
Adhering to this she stated gives momentary relief because once you give the retirees what they have contributed the agitation will reduce for some time and the government might not feel the heat and will not treat it as urgent the way they are treating it right now.
