When the Covid-19 bared its fangs in 2019 and made a sustained round the world in less than 120 days it sent all human endeavours indoors, first in Wuhan China where the outbreak started there was a state enforced strict stay home; as it spread around the globe the lockdowns varied in enforcement from nation to nations nonetheless, the previous global order of free movement of humans, goods and services were altered drastically and a new phrase to accommodate the alteration, ‘new normal’ was added to human vocabulary.
As ways of doing things in the recent past were disrupted, working from home, became the order and the already existing and largely under deployed internet architecture came to the rescue and remote working at scale not seen before became the winning mantra, individuals, small medium and large corporate firms dashed for the available internet architecture and businesses in all dimensions moved online.
One of those entities jolted by the new normal is the National Pension Commission, its work pattern was disrupted, due to the lockdown and other inhibiting Covid protocols, the Commission could not conduct the physical annual retirement verification and enrolment for employees of the federal government working in treasury funded ministries departments and agencies (MDAs) in the year 2020.
To remain in the line of duty, PenComled by Director general Aisha Dabir-Umar (pictured) like other organisations businesses and corporate bodies, developed and designed an online enrolment application with the capabilities to register, verify and enrol the prospective retirees. After the hosting on the commission website www.pencom.gov.ng the prospective retirees were required to conclude online registration October 29 but had to be postponed to December 31to allow all to meet the deadline. The online verification and enrolment exercise shall be in three stages: registration- self assisted and PFA assisted; verification; and enrolment.
The application has four modules namely: retiree registration module. This platform allows the prospective retirees to register their bio-data, employment details, and upload the required supporting documents of their employment records. Following after is the pension fund administration module (PFAs). This module allows for verification and enrolment of the prospective retirees, as well as submission of reports to the Commission.
The third is ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) module. This module enables each MDA to upload the details of its potential retirees (their bio-data and complete employments details) and specimen signatures. The fourth is PenCom module, this module will allow the Commission to validate records submitted by the retirees, MDAs and PFAs; compute the accrued pension liability and carry out other administrative functions.
The pandemic spiked online enrolment application is a platform to facilitate the registration, verification and enrolment of retirees and prospective retirees to obtain their complete data for the purpose of computation of their accrued pension rights and budgetary allocation.
