A total number of registered pension fund contributors stand at 9,795,957 while the value of assets hits N14.27 trillion respectively, as at June 2022.

Director-General of the National Pension Commission (PenCom), Mrs. Aisha Dahir-Umar, gave the figure at a workshop on Thursday in Lagos.

Dahir-Umar, represented by the Head, Corporate Communications, Mr. Abdulqadir Dahiru, said increasing number of pension contributors and fund was responsible for the recapitalisation of the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) by PenCom.

“The reason for the recapitalisation exercise was to ramp up the capacity of the PFAs to manage the increasing number of registered contributors and the value of pension fund assets which stood at 9,795,957 and N14.27 trillion respectively, as at June 30,2022.

“PenCom increased the Minimum Regulatory Capital (Shareholders’ Fund) requirements of PFAs from N1 billion to N5 billion in 2021.

“All PFAs have complied with the commission’s directive to increase their minimum capital during the exercise which had a 12-month transition between April, 27 2021 and April, 27 2022,” she said.

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According to her, the theme of the workshop aligned with the commission’s objective of expanding coverage of the CPS as it relates to the micro pension plan.

The director-general explained that the objective was to bring into the CPS, Nigerians working in the informal sector and those who were self employed through the MPP.

Dahir-Umar noted that strategic efforts to drive the MPP remained one of the significant areas of focus of the commission.

She said the MPP was conceptualised to expand pension coverage to the informal sector, including small-scale businesses, entertainers, professionals, petty traders, artisans and entrepreneurs.

“The MPP was implemented to curb old-age poverty by assisting the workers, to contribute while working and build long-term savings to fall back on when they become old,” Dahir-Umar said.

In his presentation, Mr. Dauda Ahmed, Head, Micro Pension Department of PenCom, said that the informal sector constituted a large and persistent scale in any economy, especially in Africa.

Ahmed stated that over 80 per cent of the working population fell under the informal sector; hence the need to provide a social net such as the MPP to provide better future and retirement plan for them.

He listed the benefits of the MPP to include improved standard of living for the elderly, regular stream of benefits at old age, secures financial autonomy, access to other incentives and independence of retirees among others.

The Star