Ime Akpan
The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has listed Lagos, Osun, Kaduna, Delta and the FCT as states funding the accrued rights of the retirees and paying pensions under the contributory pension scheme.
The commission disclosed this in its ‘Status of implementation of the CPS by states’ report stated that 25 states had enacted laws on the CPS and that only 15 of them had pension bureaux and boards in line with the CPS.
The report revealed that the 25 states are Lagos, FCT, Osun, Kaduna, Delta, Ekiti, Ondo, Edo, Benue, Kebbi, Niger, Rivers, Ogun, Bayelsa, Kogi, Anambra, Abia, Taraba, Imo, Sokoto, Adamawa, Ebonyi, Nasarawa, Enugu and Oyo.
The commission further stated that Kwara, Plateau, Cross Rivers, Borno, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Katsina and Yobe states were at the bill stage of joining the CPS.
The data also showed Jigawa, Kano, Gombe and Zamfara have no pension scheme in place.
“The commission engaged the government of Rivers State, expressing concern over the state’s inability to take steps to fully implement the CPS in the state, in view of the impending commencement of retirement of employees of the state under the CPS as from 1 June 2022.
“The commission also engaged the government of Ogun State on the persistent non-remittance of pension contributions into the state employees’ RSAs by the state, in view of the fact that employees of the state would start retiring under the CPS as from 1 July 2025,” the commission stated.
PenCom further said it carried out sensitisation workshops, capacity-building programmes, and stakeholder engagement meetings during the quarter under review, including, but not limited to meeting with representatives of the Ekiti State Pension Commission, which discussed the challenges being faced in the implementation of the CPS in the state.
It added that it made presentations at the pension management retreat organised by the FCT Area Councils Staff Pension Board in Akwanga, Nasarawa State, and that the presentations were on the CPS implementation challenges with emphasis on non-credited contributions.
