The National Pension Commission, an arm of the federal government, has declared that it has formally begun the process of enrolling potential retirees in 2025, highlighting the significance of early planning.
A severe warning was also sent to all ministries, departments, and agencies, asking them to refrain from any last-minute rush that can interfere with the enrollment process and make it more difficult for the retirees to adjust to their new stage of life.
At a workshop held by the National Pension Commission on Monday in Abuja to launch the online enrollment process for pension desk officers of MDAs funded by the Federal government’s Treasury for 2024, Omolola Oloworaran, the acting director-general of the commission, revealed this information.
With this training, the last-minute arrangements for the 2024 Online Enrollment Exercise—which is intended for those who may retire in 2025—began.
Currently, 7,348,028 people in Nigeria, or 10.58 percent of the country’s working population, are registered members of the National Pension Scheme. The commission reported that it paid N1.1tn to 129,435 life annuity applicants in the second quarter of 2024, reflecting advances in pension benefits.
During her speech, the acting director general (DG) said that the purpose of this exercise is to gather precise information so that the federal government may evaluate the Accrued Pension Rights of potential retirees and make the appropriate budgetary adjustments.
The commission, she continued, has advanced significantly by automating the enrollment procedure and launching an online enrollment application that makes retiree enrollment, verification, and registration easy.
According to Oloworaran, “We at the National Pension Commission are steadfast in our statutory obligation to guarantee a smooth pre-retirement verification and enrollment process for workers of MDAs that receive funding from the Federal Government Treasury.” We undertake this activity every year to collect precise data for calculating the future retirees’ Accrued Pension Rights, so that the Federal Government can make the appropriate financial preparations.
“This meeting is more than simply a typical get-together; it’s a manifestation of PenCom’s dedication to enhancing the capabilities of all parties involved, especially you, the Pension Desk Officers, whose contributions to this process are important. By automating the enrolling process and launching an online enrollment application that enables quick and easy retiree registration, verification, and enrolment, we have achieved great progress since 2021.
“This system, which consists of the PenCom, MDA, PFA, and Retiree modules, depicts the pension administration landscape in Nigeria going forward. You PDOs are the key players in this process, making sure that the data is correctly uploaded and validated. Therefore, the goal of this workshop is to provide you with the abilities and information required to utilize the program efficiently and deal with any issues that may come up during the enrollment process. We are also here to directly address the problems from the past.
The goal of the session, according to the acting DG, is to provide pension desk officers with workable answers for application problems.
She also gave assurances that work is underway to create a better, more effective enrollment application that will guarantee a smooth and easy experience for all parties involved.
“We acknowledge that certain issues, such as application outages, have occasionally made things more difficult, especially in times of urgency. It gives me great pleasure to let you know that we are working hard to create a new, more effective enrollment application that will make the process easy and seamless for all parties involved.
She went on, saying, “I am happy to announce that all important stakeholders have made substantial progress in paying down the outstanding pension liabilities and putting in place long-term solutions that will stop funding delays in the future.
“These concerns will be handled shortly, notwithstanding some obstacles, such as delays in the transfer of monies for retirees’ accumulated rights. Reaffirming our shared obligation to Nigeria’s retirees, who deserve prompt and easy access to their benefits, is just as important as fixing technical problems today.
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