“I will like the media to call us out, to challenge us to do better always. Because its only by doing that we can deliver the best to the people that we exist to serve.”
This is the template the Director General, National Pension Commission PenCom, Ms Omolola Oloworaran, put out to the media at the eleventh conference of the Nigerian Association of Pension and Insurance Editors NAIPE in Lagos recently.
Omolola who is content to occupy a place where she can serve ordinary Nigerians with connecting circles of contentment, said PenCom has positioned itself where all working Nigerians would imagine Nigeria where growing old does not mean unending tale of abandonment. Where retirement is not feared as the beginning of permanent financial insecurity.
PenCom DG who has outpaced her predecessors in solving pension challenges said the negative narrative once colored the lives of federal retirees. She was clear on that and said, “Unfortunately, that appears to have been happening. But we have taken significant steps to improve the livelihood of retirees; where every Nigerian regardless of social or economic standing have genuine opportunity to retire with dignity.”
“This is the future that we are working towards at PenCom. We want every working Nigerian to retire with peace of mind and retire with dignity. That is the future we want. Ultimately, our greatest achievement will not be the size of the institution we build or the wealth that we accumulate in the industry, but the number of lives that we secure, the number of people that retire with dignity. The number of people that have healthcare. The number of low income earners that can depend on guaranteed minimum pension, which we are working on,” she declared
These combined promises she cleared, “is the true promise of the financial sector framework within the pension industry.” According to her, “that is the story worth telling of how we are transforming lives. She hopes the Commission would continue to do more, “and we are doing a lot already. But we still have a whole lot more to do.”
Angling to do more Oloworaran said, “We need to continue to transform lives always and, using the tools at our disposal, and in our case, we are taking peoples lives safely to retirement and its our job to make sure that those people can rely on and trust the system to retire in peace.”
Featured Picture: PenCom DG, Ms Omolola Oloworaran, (C), Left, CFI Olusegun Omosehin, and right flank, Mr. Wole Oshin GMD Custodian Investments Plc at the event.
