The Federal Government has directed the calculation of accrued pensions for current federal civil servants, as reported by The PUNCH.
According to a memo from the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation in Abuja, this initiative, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, targets employees hired on or before June 30, 2024.
The purpose of this action is to aid the government in planning for the timely disbursement of workers' entitlements.
The memo highlighted that delayed pension payments often result from the belated release of accrued rights under the old Defined Benefit Scheme.
To facilitate early disbursement of accrued rights, data on entitled officers needs to be collected, as stated in the memo.
The collaboration between the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, the Federal Ministry of Finance, and other stakeholders aims to compile data for affected officers hired on or before June 30, 2004.
Officers concerned must complete the mandatory form to ensure the future payment of their accrued pension rights under the old Defined Benefit Pension Scheme upon retirement.
The Federal Government's failure to allocate funds for accrued pension rights in the first half of 2024, continuing a trend from the previous year where no funds were released despite budgetary allocations.
The Minister highlighted the release made in the first quarter of 2023, clarifying that it covered outstanding payments from 2022.
Despite legal requirements for pension amount reviews every five years under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), the Federal Government has not adjusted pensions in line with this policy for 15 years.
The law mandates pension reviews every five years or concurrent with federal civil service salary reviews, whichever comes first. However, the FG has not implemented these adjustments since the CPS inception in 2004.
The Federal Government's debt to retirees for accrued pension rights over the past 16 months is estimated at N230 billion.
Certain pensioner groups have advocated for refraining from investing pension assets in FG securities due to the government's significant borrowing from these assets.
Despite regulations, the FG has consistently failed to fully comply with the existing pension scheme.
In 2021, the FG disbursed a total of N100.2 billion for accrued rights payments, bringing the cumulative amount released since inception to N980.18 billion, as per the National Pension Commission report.
A further N14.92 billion was released in March 2022 for accrued rights payments, with no subsequent disbursements reported by the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria beyond February 2023.