FG Initiates Computation to Expedite Retirees’ Pension Payments

The Federal Government has ordered the computation of accrued pension of serving federal civil servants.

A memo by the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, which was obtained by our correspondent on Tuesday in Abuja, said the move was in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and will focus on employees who were employed on or before June 30, 2024.

The memo said the move would enable the government to plan ahead of time towards the early release of the entitlement of the workers.

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.

The reports explained 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.

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.

In March 2022, the FG released N14.92bn for payment of accrued rights.

However, according to the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria, the FG has released funds up till February 2023, with no payment made after then.