PENCON has said that going forward it will henceforth pay pensioners their entitlement one week after retirement. PENCOM told the Senate that federal pensioners will no longer face problem of delayed pension payment after retirement. Speaking in Abuja during her submission to the Senator Olamilekan Adeola, led Senate Committee on Finance currently interfacing with government agencies on proposals for the 2023 – 2025 Medium Term Expenditure Frame Work ( MTEF ) and Fiscal Strategy Paper ( FSP), Executive Chairman of PENCOM, Aisha Dahiru Umar said that the N14.5 trillion pension fund is not idle due to right investments made of them. According to her, the backlog of accrued rights component of pension payments to Pensioners causing delay in payment over the years , is almost cleared by the Federal Government, adding that within the last seventeen years , the federal government has been paying N49billion per month to offset the accrued rights backlog of pensioners.
Aisha Dahiru Umar said, “Late payment of pension to pensioners will be a thing of the past very soon as required steps in that direction , have been taken by the federal government whose retirees are affected.” The PENCOM boss who advised pensioners to carry out required documentation a year to their retirement in fast tracking the whole process, however told the committee that the N14.5trillion available pension fund is not idle as N9 .5trillion out of it , is invested in Federal government security , N1.23trillion in Equity shares while 35% of the fund is invested in money market . The Committee said that the yearly repeated N102million overhead subvention given the agency by the federal government will be removed aside the N26billion yearly inserted into the Commission budget without cash backing.
