As part of efforts to address implementation challenges encountered with certain sections of the Pension Reform Act 2014, the National Pension Commission (PenCom) organised a retreat on the review of the Pension Act in Abuja from January 12 to 14.
The aim of the retreat was to identify salient issues to be reviewed in the Pension Act, as a prelude to advancing legislative action on the Bill.
It is expected that the National Assembly would subsequently organise a public hearing in order to provide an avenue for stakeholders to formally make input into the proposed
amendments.
The Pension Act 2014 was enacted following a review of the initial Pension Reform Act of 2004, which introduced legal and institutional frameworks of the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) and established PenCom to regulate and supervise all pension matters in Nigeria.
PenCom’s Director General, Aisha Dahir-Umar, who spoke at the retreat, informed the participants that the Pension 2014 codified one of the most important socio-economic reform initiatives of the Federal Government, leading to a pension industry that has accumulated pension assets in excess of N13 trillion, invested in various aspects of the Nigerian economy.
She noted that the review is a corollary to some implementation challenges encountered with certain sections of the Act not long after its enactment in July 2014.
This is in addition to persistent calls from stakeholders for the amendment of
some sections of the Act, which resulted in several legislative initiatives through the sponsorship of Bills for amendment of the PRA 2014 by the National Assembly.
Consequently, the Commission, as the regulator of the pension industry,
decided to coordinate and harmonize the various efforts in order to achieve a more comprehensive and constructive exercise for the review of PRA 2014.
