THE Director-General of the National Pension Commission (PenCom), Aisha Dahir-Umar, has revealed that pension fund asset has hit over N14.27 trillion.
Dahir-Umar made the revelation at a one-day workshop organised by PenCom for journalists in Lagos on Thursday, where she also assured stakeholders, especially enrolees that Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs), now had capacity to manage the increasing number of enrolees following recent recapitalisation in the pension sector.
Represented by the Head of Corporate Communications, Mr Abdulqadir Dahiru, Dahir-Umar said the theme of this year’s workshop, “Increasing Informal Sector Participation in the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS): The case for Micro Pension Plan,” aligned with the commission’s objective of expanding coverage of the CPS.
“As you know, PenCom increased the Minimum Regulatory Capital (Shareholders’ Fund) requirements of Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) from N1 billion to N5 billion last year. The recapitalisation exercise had a 12-month transition from April 27 2021, to April 27 2022.
“As of the deadline, all Pension Fund Administrators, PFAs, have complied with the commission’s directive to increase the Minimum Regulatory Capital (Shareholders’ Fund) from N1 billion to N5 billion.
“The reason for the recapitalisation was to ramp up the capacity of the Pension Fund Administrators to manage the increasing number of registered contributors, and the value of pension fund assets under which I am pleased to inform you stood at N9,795,957 and N14.27 trillion, respectively, as at June 30, 2022.”
She said the exercise is intended to make the pension industry sound and healthy, noting: “It is expected that the exercise will bring about increased effectiveness and efficiency as well as improved service delivery in the industry.”
She said the commission was aware of the importance of the media and the role they played in the pension industry, which is why PenCom took the workshop seriously for collaborations to be strengthened.
