PenCom issues Compliance Certificates to 5,453 government contractors

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) said it issued Compliance Certificates to 5,453 organisations, that sought government contracts/jobs while N14.56 billion was remitted to 70,982 employees’ Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) as at third quarter of 2019.

PenCom noted that it received a total of 5,600 applications for the issuance of Compliance Certificates, as at end of Q3 2019, adding that 5,453 certificates were issued while 147 applications were declined due to non-remittance of pension contributions for the appropriate period and/or non-provision of Group Life Insurance Policy for the employees.

“The sum of N14.56 billion was remitted to 70,982 employees’ RSAs by the 5,453 organisations,” it said.

The Pension sector regulator said it continued to apply various strategies to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2014. “These included the application of sanctions and collaboration with key stakeholders on public enlightenment campaigns as well as engagement of defaulting employers via pension recovery agents employed by the Commission to recover unremitted pension contributions,” it posited.

It noted that efforts were sustained at collaborating with social partners to drive compliance with the provisions of the PRA 2014 by the Organised Private Sector (OPS), stressing that in collaboration with the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), organised interactive sessions with the OPS on the “Current Developments and Challenges” in the implementation of the CPS, interactive sessions were held in September, 2019 at Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Kano.

The interactive sessions, it maintained, provided a platform for the Commission to interact with the OPS on the implementation of the CPS adding that the sessions also provided an opportunity to update stakeholders on recent developments, address concerns, clarify issues and discuss the expectations of the contributors, with a view to improving compliance with the provisions of the PRA 2014. Furthermore, the Commission obtained valuable feedback from the OPS on the implementation of the CPS during the sessions, it added.