The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has stated it has recovered N608.5m from employers who deducted monthly pensions of their workers but did not remit to their retirement savings accounts (RSAs) with their respective pension fund administrators (PFAs).
According to the 2021 first quarter report released by the commission on Tuesday, the amount consists of N162.3 million principal contribution and N446.1 million penalty.
“Following the issuance of demand notices to defaulting employers whose pension liabilities had been established by the Recovery Agents, the sum of N608,554,747.59 representing principal contribution (N162,385,260.05) and penalty (N446,169,487.54) was recovered from 25 defaulting employers during the quarter under review,” the report reads.
From January to March 2021, PenCom said it received a total of 14,741 applications from private sector organisations for the issuance of pension clearance certificates (PCCs).
Out of this number, PCCs were issued to 9,299 organizations while 5,442 applications were being processed.
According to the commission, 9,299 organisations that were issued certificates, remitted the sum of N41.9 billion into the RSAs of 163,286 employees.
“The total pension contributions remitted to the RSAs in the first quarter of 2021 stood at N203.10 billion. Out of this total, the public sector accounted for N115.83 billion or 57.03 percent while the private sector contributed N87.27 billion or 42.9 percent,” the report added.
“The cumulative pension contributions received from both the public and private sectors from inception to the end of the first quarter of 2021, therefore, amounted to N6.91 trillion, up from the N6.70 trillion as at the end of the Q4 2020.”
PenCom said the pension industry recorded a marginal growth of 0.91 percent in schemes membership, rising from 9.27 million contributors as at the end of Q4 2020 to 9.36 million in Q1 2021.