By Adedapo Adesanya
The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has appealed to all active Retirement Savings Account (RSA) holders and retirees to cooperate with agents that would be visiting their organisations to carry out the Data Recapture Exercise (DRE).
This was disclosed by the commission’s Head of Corporate Communication, Mr Peter Aghahowa, via a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday.
According to the statement, the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) was directed by the commission to obtain the relevant information required for the DRE from RSA holders and the process is ongoing.
“One of the information required for the exercise is the National Identity Number (NIN).
“The commission is desirous to ensure that all RSA holders are able to exercise their rights of transferring their RSAs from one PFA to another, in anticipation of the formal launch of the RSA Transfer System during the last quarter of 2020.
“The commission, therefore, wishes to notify all RSA holders that the completion of the DRE is a prerequisite for processing any RSA transfer request by RSA holders who registered before July 1, 2019,” he said.
Mr Aghahowa said that to fast-track the DRE, the commission approved a proposal of the Pension Operators’ Association of Nigeria (PenOp) for an industry Shared Service Initiative (SSI).
He said that PenOp has engaged agents to conduct the DRE on behalf of all PFAs.
According to him, this arrangement will enhance efficiency in carrying out the exercise as it will allow an agent to recapture all RSA holders in the same organisation on behalf of all PFAs.
Mr Aghahowa said that the partnership with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and the selected agents would have the ability to carry out NIN registrations seamlessly.
PenCom introduced DRE in August 2019 in order to obtain complete, accurate and current data of all RSA holders (both active and retired).
Business Post had reported that DRE involves recapturing the personal data of all registered RSA holders, who must provide their NIN to their PFAs, in line with the federal government’s directive that every Nigerian must have a NIN.
It had directed PFAs to embark on the recapturing exercise, following the slow adoption of the Enhanced Contributor Registration System (ECRS) application, a platform deployed by the commission to build a credible database of contributors under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).
