FG commences computation to fast-track retirees’ pension

The Federal Government has directed the calculation of the accumulated pension benefits of current federal civil servants.

A memo from the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, obtained by our correspondent on Tuesday in Abuja, revealed that the government has directed the computation of accrued pension benefits for civil servants hired on or before June 30, 2024, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance.

The memo explained that this initiative will enable the government to proactively plan and prepare for the timely payment of the employees’ entitlements.

The memo read: “It has been observed that one of the reasons for the delay in the payment of pension of retired officers is the late release of their accrued rights under the old Defined Benefit Scheme.

“To enable the government plan towards early release of the accrued rights, there is a need to harvest the data of the officers who are entitled to the rights.

“Consequently, the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Finance and other stakeholders, is compiling data of the affected officers who were employed on or before 30th June 2004.

“All concerned officers are to note that filling the form is mandatory to enable the payment of their accrued pension rights under the old Defined Benefit Pension Scheme, when they retire.

It was reported that the Federal Government has failed to release funds for payment of accrued pension rights in the first half of 2024.

The FG had reneged for the full year 2023, as no funds were released despite budgetary provisions.

The release made in the first quarter of 2023 was for outstanding payments in 2022.

This comes against the backdrop of FG’s failure to implement its policy on the upward review of pension amounts under the Contributory Pension Scheme for 15 years, against policy prescriptions of upward review every five years as stipulated by law.

While the law stipulates that pensions shall be reviewed every five years or together with any federal civil service salary reviews, whichever is earlier, the FG has failed to implement pension adjustments under the Contributory Pension Scheme, CPS, since the scheme’s inception in 2004.

The FG’s indebtedness to retirees on accrued pension rights in the last 16 months is estimated at N230bn.

Some pensioner groups have called for a boycott of investing pension assets in FG securities since the government borrowing comes mainly from pension assets.

At the same time, the FG had always been found wanting in complying with the extant pension scheme.

According to a report by the National Pension Commission, in 2021, the FG released a total of N100.2bn for payment of accrued rights which brought the total amount released by the FG from inception to N980.18bnn.

The FG released N14.92bn for payment of accrued rights in March 2022.

Despite this move, the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria revealed that the Federal Government last released funds for pension payments up to February 2023, with no subsequent payments made since then.