The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has criticized the current pension scheme, claiming it impoverishes retirees instead of providing for them in their old age. NLC President Joe Ajaero made these remarks at a retirement summit in Abuja themed \u201cChallenges, Strategies, Prospects and Opportunities at Retirement in Nigeria.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Ajaero highlighted that the federal government owes over N360 billion in pension arrears, with federal parastatals contributing an additional N40 billion. He condemned the scheme, arguing that it has become a death sentence for many retirees due to its failure to maintain the value of contributions, leading to financial hardship and health challenges.<\/p>\n
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“The medium for storing pensions, which is the Naira, has maintained an unstable value and depreciated over the years,” Ajaero said, adding that a stable platform is necessary to preserve the value of workers’ contributions.<\/p>\n
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Ajaero also pointed out that some states have pension arrears extending up to eight years, and many private sector companies are in arrears for up to three years, deducting contributions without remitting them to Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs). He called for a more effective pension system to ensure financial security and peace of mind for retirees.<\/p>\n
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“In 2021, PENCOM appointed recovery agents who realized N984.23 million from 36 defaulting employers, representing N406.42 million as principal contributions and N577.87 million as penalties,” Ajaero noted. He also criticized the inadequate activation of Micro-Pensions for the informal sector and the mismanagement of non-contributory pension funds, referencing the cases of Maina and the former Accountant General.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has criticized the current pension scheme, claiming it impoverishes retirees instead of providing for them in their old age. NLC President Joe Ajaero made these remarks at a retirement summit in Abuja themed \u201cChallenges, Strategies, Prospects and Opportunities at Retirement in Nigeria.\u201d Ajaero highlighted that the federal government owes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":38927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38928,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38925\/revisions\/38928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}