PENCOM plans for informal sector

The National Pension Commission (PENCOM) on Thursday said it would soon launch a new pension scheme for people under the informal sector of the nation’s economy.

Dr Farouk Aminu, Head, Corporate Strategy and Research Department of PENCOM, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja.

According to him, the objective of the pension scheme is to get the people under the informal sector to be covered by pension system.

Aminu listed bean cake (Akara) sellers,Ttilors, mechanics,vulcanisers and artists were among the persons under informal sector the commission would establish new pension scheme for.

He stressed that this would be special scheme designed to help the peculiarity of these people under the informal sector of the economy.

“When one looks at the people under informal sector you will notice that their income are irregular and does not come often.

“So you cannot put them with people whose incomes are regular; example, yesterday the person earned a million Naira and today he earned nothing.

“People that earn regular incomes, their pensions are percentages of their salaries, hence you have to consider these peculiarities,’’ he said.

Aminu explained that people working under the informal sector, each of them had to be met one by one on their different locations to be captured for pension.

“People who earn regular incomes work under the ministries or agencies and are easily to be captured under the pension scheme’’.

He added that all the states in the country presently were reforming their pension systems to ensure that they operated a safer and credible pension scheme.

Aminu explained that formerly when a federal civil servant retired, he or she would stay up to six months before he started to receive his retirement benefits.

“But now with the new reform pension law, any person that retires under the federal civil service will start to receive his retirement benefits from four months’’, Aminu said.

He explained that Nigeria pension law had some sort of social security to assist self-employed persons in the country.

Aminu advised employees to always register with Pension Fund Administrators of their own choice, adding that they should also give correct information for their pension.

He also advised pension contributors under Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) that had challenges for remittance issues to see IPPIS to rectify these problems.

Aminu added that pension contributors who were yet to transfer to IPPIS but still under PENCOM should see the commission to correct the challenges.

He said that if there was any challenge from the PENCOM, it must be from the Nominal Roll of the contributor.

He added that when such challenge arose, PENCOM always asked the retirees to send their nominal roll to the commission for corrections and the pensioners would immediately start to receive their benefits.