Ebere Nwoji
The
umbrella body of Pension fund administrators, Pension Fund Operators
Association of Nigeria (PenOp), has revealed that the
long -awaited
pension transfer window will commence in June, 2020.
PenOp,
however, said the exercise would depend on the ability of both the
pension fund administrators (PFAs) and the regulator, the National
Pension Commission(PenCom), to fine-tune issues relating to total
cleaning of contributors’ data which had constituted delay to the
take-off of the transfer window over the years.
Disclosing
this at a one-day seminar organised by PenOp for the National
Association of Insurance and Pension Correspondents (NAIPCO), in Lagos,
at the weekend, PenOp Chairman, Mrs Ronke Adedeji, said the issue of
National Identity Number (NINC) was affecting the speed of contributors’
data cleaning for the exercise to take-off.
Owing to
this, she stressed that the proposed June 2020 commencement date would
be tentative, adding that the operators and the regulator are working
hard to ensure that it happens.
The
pension transfer window is an avenue that would allow contributors into
the Contributory Pension Scheme who are dissatisfied with the services
of their existing pension fund managers to move to any other one of
their choice as stipulated by the Pension Reform Act 2004 amended in
2014.
Section
13 of the Pension Reform Act (2014) specifies that an employee may, not
more than once in a year, transfer his Retirement Savings Account (RSA)
from one PFA to another.
Past
administrations in PenCom had given several dates for the take-off of
the transfer window which later failed but a council member of PenOp and
Managing Director UBA pension Custodian, Mr Bayo Yusuf, disclosed that
PenCom and the PFAs have been engaging on the matter, just to ensure
that the June 2020 date was realistic.
Meanwhile,
many dissatisfied contributors into the CPS have been itching for the
commencement of the transfer window to enable them migrate from their
existing PFA.
Some of
the challenges highlighted by contributors that made them to demand for a
change of their fund manager was that whereas the Pension Act states
that contributors should be allowed to choose fund managers of their
choice, some employees selected a few number of pension fund
managers they want to deal with and compelled their employees to choose
from the list, thereby compelling them to choose pension fund managers
they do not want to manage their funds.
Also, it
was gathered that some that choose managers, complained that their
annuity fund had not been transferred to their insurers whereas they
stipulated that they want to buy annuity from an insurance company in
place of programmed withdrawal.
Some
said their PFA don’t send information on their fund management, while
some said their PFA in the alert sent to them monthly, deduct money from
the actual amount deducted from their salaries.
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