By Adedapo Adesanya
The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has disclosed that 21,000 prospective retirees would be registered soon on its newly developed online enrollment portal across the nation.
This was disclosed by the Commissioner, Technical, PenCom, Mr Anyim Nyerere, at a workshop organised by the commission for Pension Desk Officers (PDO’s) on Enrollment Application on Wednesday in Lagos.
Mr Nyerere said that 11,000 prospective retirees were due for the annual pre-retirement enrollment exercise in 2019/2020 while 10,000 prospective retirees were expected for the 2020/2021 fiscal year.
He explained that the 2019/2020 retirees-to-be were pending due to the inability of PenCom to conduct the physical annual pre-retirement enrolment exercise due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
He noted that following the development, the agency had developed an online enrolment application with the capabilities to register, verify and enrol prospective retirees.
Mr Nyerere said that the application would provide the guidance note accordingly which would help to compute the retirees’ benefits.
“This nouveau application, which will be hosted on the commission’s website, will enable prospective retirees to log on to register with their details on the Retiree Registration Module (RRM).
“It is an established norm within PenCom to conduct physical annual retirement verification and enrolment exercise on the Federal Government of Nigeria employees of the Treasury Funded Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) scheduled for retirement within the next fiscal year.
“This exercise is aimed at validating and determining the retirees’ accrued pension liabilities for budgetary allocation by the federal government.
“PenCom regrets the inability to conduct this physical annual pre-retirement enrolment exercise due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
“Therefore, the need to observe the necessary safety measures as directed by the government thus becomes inevitable.
“The PDOs and the public within the pension industry will appreciate the challenges in not conducting the physical pre-retirement enrolment exercise,” he said.
According to him, the desire of the commission is to ensure that the exercise is done so as not to affect the validation and determination of the accrued pension liabilities of the prospective retirees for government budgetary purposes.
Mr Nyerere noted that the MDAs would be required to upload the list of potential retirees who had not been enrolled before, including their full name and signature specimen of its authorised signatories, among others.
The commissioner stated that the workshop was to expose the PDOs to the online enrolment application procedures for the verification of the prospective retirees.
He said, “the PDOs will guide prospective retirees on how to complete the information on the application.
“The PDOs will equally ensure that the retirees’ information submitted by the MDAs are accurately completed in line with the online enrolment guidance notes.
“This workshop will help equip the PDOs with the requisite knowledge on how the retiree registration module operates for the smooth implementation of the online enrolment application.
“Necessary safeguards and modalities have equally been put in place for the exercise.
“We hope the PDOs will strictly comply with the provisions of the guidance notes on the enrolment for the conduct of the upcoming nationwide pre-retirement verification and enrolments exercise.”
